Radar in space

Hi Guys,

i'm not to clued up on the technology space shuttles carry but do they or can they have radar?

you see all these flying objects taken from the shuttles cameras but surely if they had radar they could tell the speed and it if was metalic or not?

just curious

cheers

Graham

Tracking space objects is the job of US Space Command. They monitor everything in orbit, including the shuttle and everything around it. The shuttle doesn't carry any sort of on board radar that I'm aware of.

ah so no onboard radar that answers that one.

thank mate

Graham

The space shuttle has used imaging radar on several missions...mostly to map Earth's topography.... I think it also uses some kind of Ku Band radar for communications...

EDIT: I'm sure one of our aircraft gurus could enlighten much further...

[edit on 1-6-2007 by Gazrok]

I beg to differ, STS OV's do have an onboard KU-band radar. It's used in docking primarily but is also used when approaching and departing any satellite in orbit. STS OV's also have LIDAR which is used when radar fails as it did on STS-64. Try NASA for more data. There is extensive data.

Cheers,

Vic

[edit on 1-6-2007 by V Kaminski]

V K, you're right, I forgot about those. I don't know how good they'd work at any kind of range though.

Gaz, the imaging radar used by the shuttle for mapping the earth looks like it's a payload bay add on for specific missions.

It was designed to fit in the payload bay of the Space Shuttle. SIR-C/X-SAR also has a variable look angle, and could image at incidence angles between 20 and 65 degrees.

www.informatics.org...

It looks like in passive range the KU radar has a range of 14 miles, and 345 miles in active mode. But in active mode it requires a transponder on the target to enhance the radar beam. So the range of something without a transponder is only 14 miles.

I can't find anything on the LIDAR, but since it's only for docking, it's probably a similar range as the KU band.

[edit on 6/1/2007 by Zaphod58]