Recent results from Goldstone orbital debris radar

On a limited basis, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA's) Goldstone X-band radar has been available to-monitor the orbital debris environment. This powerful radar, which can detect a 3 mm diameter conducting sphere at a range of 1,000 km, fills a niche in MASA's ongoing program to monitor and mitigate the hazard of orbital debris. In this paper, we present flux measurements and other results of several years of monitoring. Some of the debris objects are observed to orbit in clusters, which indicates a common origin for them. One such cluster appears to be the remnants of 350 million copper dipoles, launched in 1961 as a communications experiment. (C) 1999 COSPAR. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.