Radar System Design for Spacecraft Terminal Control

This paper discusses several radar design considerations for use in the terminal control of manned and unmanned space vehicles of the maneuverable type. The main body of the paper deals with specific areas of radar development resulting from recent work in developing a terminal control system. The radar system discussed uses a transponder on board the vehicle. The transponder receives and transmits PCM commands and flight data in addition to reference pulses for angle and range tracking. The technical areas discussed are reliability of self-acquisition, pulse code modulated (PCM) data transmission, semidigital ranging, and the accuracy of computed radar data.