Management of radar resources for space debris tracking

Tens of thousands of debris are expected in the near future in the most critical Low Earth Orbit regimes, hence representing a serious threat for European space assets. In the frame of the Space Situational Awareness (SSA) Preliminary Programme of the European Space Agency, the design of a ground-based phased array radar - aimed at debris detection and tracking - has been proposed. The sensor will provide regularly new measurements of objects' orbital parameters to the cataloguing centre. Track-while-Scan survey has been proposed for efficiently covering a wide volume of the sky, whereas Active Tracking tasks might be engaged in order to improve the tracking performance on specific targets. Concepts for combining Survey/Tracking tasks and managing the radar resources are analysed in this paper against the requirements dictated by SSA collision warning services.