![]() The loss of Arecibo leaves planetary scientists with primarily just a single radar at a NASA Deep Space Network antenna in Goldstone, California. Arecibo was one of the few observatories in the world with a planetary radar capability, funded by NASA as part of its planetary defense program to refine the orbits of asteroids and determine their size and shape. The discussion about Arecibo was part of a broader examination of planetary radar capabilities, used to study near Earth asteroids and other solar system objects. 27 enactment on options for repairing or replacing the telescope. Congress, in its fiscal year 2021 omnibus appropriations bill, directed the NSF to provide a report within 60 days of the bill’s Dec. It will be up to NSF to decide whether to build a replacement for Arecibo’s giant dish, and if so what form it will take and what applications it will serve. None of these facilities are on the same scale as Arecibo. One company, LeoLabs, has established its own set of radars to support space traffic management services it offers commercially. The military has long operated its own radars for tracking objects, such as the new Space Fence. ![]() “It is an area where we’ve gotten a lot of interest throughout the years, so we want to make sure that is also part of its capabilities.”Ĭordova didn’t elaborate on that past interest by the Defense Department in Arecibo for SSA activities. ![]() “That is something that would be baked into the instrument,” he said. The increased sky coverage of the proposed array, Cordova suggested, made it more useful for SSA applications. “We’ve actually had many plans to incorporate those kinds of capabilities previously into the 305-meter, but we weren’t able to do it at the capacity we wanted to because of the limited sky coverage.” There has been strong interest by the “DOD community” for years in using Arecibo for SSA. “That particular capability really comes embedded into the concept of the next-generation telescope,” he said when asked by the committee about SSA. One of the potential applications he listed on a slide in his presentation was space situational awareness (SSA). That new concept, Cordova said, could serve applications beyond astronomy and planetary science. “But, any future visions of the site really need to be centered around the development of a next-generation instrument.” “From our perspective as the operator, we feel that the 305-meter was really an invaluable tool,” he said. The concept in the white paper would double the sensitivity of the single-dish radio telescope and increase sky coverage by 250% compared to the fixed dish, as well as incorporate a new radar system. 21 meeting of a committee supporting the ongoing planetary science decadal survey by the National Academies. ![]() “As we move into the future, we feel that phased arrays are probably the right way to go, rather than continue to focus on large single-dish elements,” said Francisco Cordova, director of Arecibo Observatory, during a presentation at a Jan. One proposal, developed by observatory staff and submitted to the National Science Foundation (NSF) in a recent white paper, calls for replacing the giant dish with an array of up to 1,000 small dishes, each nine meters across, on a platform spanning the current dish. Plans for a potential replacement of the 305-meter radio telescope at Arecibo, whose observing platform collapsed Dec. WASHINGTON - A proposal to replace the giant radio telescope at Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico with a new facility suggests it could be used for tracking space objects as well as for scientific research.
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