Technological developments for a space-borne orbital debris radar at 94 GHz

This paper describes the design and some technological developments for a 94-GHz heterodyne chirp radar prototype for space debris detection. We use off-the-shelf components for both the signal generation and the acquisition subsystems, and W-band GaN solid-state technology for the high-power Tx/Rx modules. Several radiating structures are considered in order to expand the system for monopulse tracking operation.