Abstract
Debris laser ranging (DLR) is receiving considerable attention as an accurate and effective method of determining and predicting the orbits of space debris. This paper reports some technologies of DLR, such as the high pulse repetition frequency (PRF) laser pulse, large-aperture telescope, telescope array, multi-static stations receiving signals. DLR with a picosecond laser at the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory is also presented. A few hundred laps of space debris laser-ranging measurements have been made. A double-pulse picosecond laser with an average power of 4.2 W, a PRF of 1 kHz, and a wavelength of 532 nm has been implemented successfully in DLR, it’s the first time that DLR technology has reached a ranging precision at the sub-decimeter level. In addition, the characteristics of the picosecond-pulse-width laser transmission with the advantages of transmission in laser ranging were analyzed. With a mode of the pulse-burst picosecond laser having high average power, the DLR system has tracked small debris with a radar cross-section (RCS) of 0.91 m2 at a ranging distance up to 1726.8 km, corresponding to an RCS of 0.1 m2 at a distance of 1000 km. These works are expected to provide new technologies to further improve the performance of DLR.
Highlights
Accepted: 25 October 2021Human activities in space have increased with the development of space technology, resulting in many uncontrollable artificial satellites, rocket bodies, and spacecraft in space [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]
This paper presented the developments in the research and implementation of debris laser ranging (DLR)
The detection capabilities of the DLR system have been improved by increasing the pulse repetition frequency (PRF) of laser ranging and reducing background light noise and dark noise in the detector
Summary
Human activities in space have increased with the development of space technology, resulting in many uncontrollable artificial satellites, rocket bodies, and spacecraft in space [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. DLR has advanced in terms of the pulse repetition frequency (PRF) and pulse width of the laser, single photon detection, and signal receiving These technological advances can effectively improve the tracking capability of DLR, resulting in routine observations and applications, such as the determination of the orbits and attitudes of space debris and the verification of orbits. The main advances of the proposed DLR technologies are addressed in this study, including high PRF, a laser detector with low dark current noise and high efficiency, and a picosecond-pulse-width laser Employing these technologies to the SHAO facility, we obtained a lot of DLR measurements and analyzed them to investigate DLR improvement in terms of ranging accuracy and tracking capability
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