Passive Radar Payload on a Nano/Micro-Satellite for Air and Missile Defense

The threat to the forces and assets of our armed forces, and our allies, posed by cruise missiles is growing at an alarming rate. As of 2002, there were already 80 countries, including The Peoples Republic of China, Iran, and North Korea, with cruise missiles in their arsenals. Eighteen of these countries produce cruise missiles domestically. As these threats continue to proliferate and as the capabilities increase the timeline to detect hostile cruise missiles and initiate defensive measures decrease. Consequently, new surveillance and detection capabilities are required. deciBel Research and our partners, Nexolve and Kratos, propose to develop a passive RF receiver that can be deployed on nano- or micro-satellites such as CubeSat and FastSat. A constellation of these receivers, used in conjunction with existing RF transmitting satellite constellations such as GPS, Iridium, etc., will form a space-based, multi-static radar surveillance network. The radar concept of operations will be developed under the Phase I effort along with requirements and specifications for the receiver module. A prototype receiver will be developed under Phase II and used in ground tests to demonstrate concept effectiveness.