Kiwi Space Radar

3 years ago
31

This installation is near Naesby, Central Otago, New Zealand. About 100km north west of Dunedin. The radar tracks satellites, and space junk in the low Earth orbit range. It tracks around 12,000 items and makes between 3 to 6 million detections per month.

The space radar contributes to satellite networks like swarm.space and SpaceX Starlink.

If you are doing a school project and need an image of the kiwi space radar feel free to use some frames out of the video.

Explanation of function of installation.
The way I see it is like this: there are two pairs of equipment on the ground, two transmitters and two receivers. It transmits two walls of radio waves, like a fan, which stretch from Tasmania in Australia, to out in the ocean east of New Zealand. Space junk and objects cross the beam walls and receive dishes see the radio waves that reflect off of the objects. You can work out a partial track by crossing correlation. There are other sets of equipment in other countries

starlink.com
leolabs.space
swarm.space
rocketlab.co.nz
rocketlabusa.com

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