ATLAS: Deployment, Control Platform and First RSO Measurements

TL;DR

The paper presents ATLAS, a new radar system developed in Portugal for tracking space debris in low earth orbit, enhancing space situational awareness and collision avoidance capabilities.

Contribution

Introduction of ATLAS, a novel radar sensor for space debris monitoring, integrated into Portugal's SST efforts, with initial measurements demonstrating its capabilities.

Findings

ATLAS successfully tracks objects above 10 cm^2 at 1000 km.

The system operates at 5.56 GHz and is integrated with EU-SST.

First measurements confirm its effectiveness in space debris detection.

Abstract

The ever increasing dependence of modern societies in space based services results in a rising number of objects in orbit which grows the probability of collisions between them. The increase in space debris is a threat to space assets, space based-operations and led to a common effort to develop programs for dealing with it. As part of the Portuguese Space Surveillance and Tracking (SST) project, led by the Portuguese Ministry of Defense (MoD), Instituto de Telecomunica\c{c}\~oes (IT) is developing the rAdio TeLescope pAmpilhosa Serra (ATLAS), a new monostatic radar tracking sensor located at the Pampilhosa da Serra Space Observatory (PASO), Portugal. The system operates at 5.56 GHz and aims to provide information on objects in low earth orbit (LEO), with cross sections above 10 cm$^2$ at 1000~km. The sensor is tasked by the Portuguese Network Operations Center (NOC), located in the Azores island, which interfaces with the EU-SST network.