Due to its many years of experience in the area of space observation with radar, Fraunhofer Institute for High Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques FHR is a renowned expert in this field. With its radar system TIRA, the institute offers capabilities that are not available anywhere else in the world. With the new radar system GESTRA (German Experimental Space Surveillance and Tracking Radar), round-the-clock observation of active satellites and space debris will be possible for the first time in Germany. This will pave the way for the creation of an orbital data catalog which will be instrumental in preventing collisions.
The new space surveillance radar GESTRA, which is currently being developed by Fraunhofer FHR for the Space Administration of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), is equipped with an electronically steerable antenna which is able to scan large areas of the sky within milliseconds due to the integration of the latest semiconductor technology. Due to its compact design, GESTRA is a mobile system which can be transported to any required location.
When put into operation for the German Space Situational Awareness Center of the German Armed Forces in 2019, wide-range surveillance of the debris population in near-Earth space (orbital heights of 300 km to 3,000 km) will be possible from German territory for the first time. GESTRA will then operate continuously to create a catalog of the debris in near-Earth space. This new data basis will have a great influence on the further development and operation of the space infrastructure of Germany and Europe.
Learn more about the GESTRA system
On Monday 23.04.2018 at 10 a.m., Fraunhofer FHR will present the space surveillance radar GESTRA and its innovative and complex techniques in a film which can be viewed at www.fhr.fraunhofer.de/gestra.
Information on GESTRA will be available at three exhibition stands: Hall 4, Stand 202 (Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft), Hall 3, Stand 302 (German Space Situational Awareness Center of the German Armed Forces) and Hall 2, Stand 203 (Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy) at the ILA Berlin from 25-29 April 2018.
