Ground Radar Detection of Meteoroids in Space

Abstract

The North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) has the responsibility of detecting and tracking artificial satellites in Earth orbit. Objects detected with a velocity in excess of the escape velocity of Earth are normally disregarded by the ground radar since they are obviously not orbiting satellites. During a special test conducted by NORAD for NASA to lower the detection threshold for small satellites, part of the radar software was modified, resulting in acquisition of what appears to be important new meteoroid data. The purpose of this paper is to describe the special test and give a preliminary analysis of the meteoroid data.