ISRO’s Made In India RADAR Can Track Space Debris 1,000 km away

ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) is in the process of commissioning a multipurpose, ‘Made In India’ RADAR that can track space debris. This multi-object tracking radar was introduced by M Y S Prasad, the director of Satish Dhawan Space Center today at Sriharikota. The capabilities of this system are mind boggling. It can track any object, as small as about a square meter in size, from a distance of about 1000 km. The radar is expected to be tested during the next PSLV rocket launch in June.

Mr. Prasad informed that there are only five companies in the world that can build a radar of this sophistication.

He named Raytheon (US), Northrop Grumman (US), Lockheed Martin (US), Elta (Israel) and NEC (Japan). Prasad further informed that with foreign collaboration, the same radar would cost about Rs. 800 crores to build but ISRO team built it for mere Rs. 245 crores. Mr. V Seshagiri Rao, former director of the radar project informed the media that the software written for the radar system alone would be worth about Rs. 100 crore. The project was approved back in August 2012 and ISRO engineers built it well within time.

The new radar is quite unique in its operations. Instead of disc radars that need to keep spinning, this new 35 ton system remains stationary.

It’s in the shape of a rectangle that measures about 12m x 8m that contains about 4068 radiating elements. These elements are designed to emit RF waves that integrate into a single beam. The engineers can steer the beam to cover most of the sky. Also, the radar’s base itself can be moved, thus allowing for the entire sky to be scanned.

ISRO’s confident that this radar system will help in their future manned missions. Especially, this radar would prove very helpful to track the re-entry of the crew module from space. ISRO currently plans to use it to protect satellites in the lower earth orbit region.

Until now, ISRO had to rely on the space debris data provided by NASA. The space debris had required ISRO to maneuver the satellites as many as twelve times in the past five years. The new radar will now supplement that information provided by NASA and help ISRO better protect Indian satellites.

Almost all of the components of the system, except for the dome that covers it was design and built by ISRO and Indian industries. ISRO had to import the dome because they could not find any supplier in India who’d assure RF Transparency. Prasad also said that the toned-down version of the radar would prove immensely helpful to the airports to track flights.