Radar Tracees - question

Hello,

i was wondering if any of you know of the existence radar traces of objects moving from within the atmosphere to earth's orbit or beyond..... There are many within the atmosphere from ATC tracing objects ( alaska JAL incident, Jersey channel islands last year etc... ) ...

I think it would be interesting if there was any radar evidence tracing something leaving the atmosphere or the other way around that couldn't be connected to mainstream space missions.

Thank you very much

Good question... But the problem would be to actually have access to the radar logs. I believe that would be very difficult...

I was wondering one day if it were possible (but at what cost?) to build your own personal radar for tracking the skies. Possible, or even legal!

There is, But you will never get access to it.

I am a radar operator for the R.A.N. and have been doing it for over 18 years. I have tracked everything air wise from a Cessna to a SR71 blackbird, also add nighthawk, B2 and the shuttle (re-entry) to the list.

Now to tracking out of orbit.... This would depend on the type of Radar in use at the time, If it is a standard air search, then the max tracking height is about 80000ft and 60nm, pulse dopler (SPY1D) is higher, but at a shorter range, and CWI (Continuous Wave Illuminating) is a point beam high powered fire control Radar. There are others, but these cover about 90% for air search.

If you where to place one of these types in to space to track outbound objects, you run the risk of illuminating cities, and high powered air search radars just love to play havoc with anything electronic that happens to be in their path.

If you base it on the planet, you run the risk of not being able to track at that height, basically, the higher you track, the more power and tighter beam you require.

As to build one - not a chance. Would have to be in a designated military frequency, with a power output exceeding 250kw, and I think you will find that the max you can transmit at is 25w