Radar astronomy with the XC crosscorrelators

The XC crosscorrelators offer various opportunities for research and study.

One of these opportunities is to turn a radio antenna or a radio antennas array to a single or multichannel radar to study the moon or other NEOs.

To do this there are two possible configurations: one is to connect a transmitter to the external sampling rate output, the second is to connect the transmitter to the frame end output.

The transmitter will then emit a pulse each frame end or each sampling pulse synchronized with the readout clock of each antenna input.

The auto and cross correlation degree will then be relative to the reflection of the transmitted pulses from the object observed.

Using a single antenna will be very useful to determine the distance of the target of the observations, whilst in interferometer configuration there’s the possibility to draw a detailed map of the surface of the moon, for example or the shape of a smaller NEO like an asteroid or a meteor field during starfalling crossing dates.