Laser ranging system and measurement analysis for space debris with high repetition rate

Laser measurement technology is inherently high accurate and will play an important role in precise orbit determination, accurate catalog, surveillance to space debris. Shanghai Astronomical Observatory (SHAO) has been developing the technology of laser measurement to space debris for several years. Based on the first successful laser ranging measurement to space debris in country, by applying one new set of high power 532nm wavelength laser system with 200Hz repetition rate, and adopting low dark noise APD detector with high quantum efficiency and high transmissivity of narrow bandwidth spectral filter, SHAO have achieved hundreds of passes of laser data from space debris in 2014, and the measured objects with distance between 500km and 2200km, Radar Cross Section (RCS) of >10m2 to <0.5m2 at the precision of <1m RMS for small RCS targets ,and the success rate of measured passes of up to 80%. The results show that laser ranging technology in China can routinely measure space debris and provide enough measurement data with high accuracy to space debris applications and researches such as surveillance activities in the future.