Processing Space Fence RCS Data for Hard-Body Radius and Mass Estimation

Abstract

With the addition of the Space Fence (SFK) radar to the Space Surveillance Network (SSN), the NASA Conjunction Assessment Risk Analysis (CARA) team now has access to radar cross-section (RCS) measurements for many Earth orbiting satellites. The CARA team has developed a process to estimate satellite sizes and masses from the SFK RCS measurement data. This study describes the processes used to filter the RCS data, defines the algorithms used to estimate satellite sizes and masses, and presents comparisons of estimated values against known nanosat sizes and masses.