Abstract

We report, to our knowledge for the first time, on the temporal analysis of echoes from satellites using a picosecond laser as a transmitter and a streak camera as a receiver. The existing ranging technology employing detectors like photomultipliers and semiconductor photodiodes accomplishes centimeter ranging accuracy, however the data users demand for the 90ies to reach millimeter level. The main contributors to the ranging error budget are the satellite retro-reflector array geometry and the atmospheric dispersion. To analyze the temporal profile of the reflected signal and to facilitate atmospheric dispersion measurements by means of 2-color ranging, we proposed to use a streak camera with 2-dimensional sweep.

© 1992 IQEC