Investigation of Clutter Removal on Cis-Lunar Target Detection Using DSN Open-Loop Tracking Data

As NASA and other space agencies are gearing up toreturn to the moon, there is significant interest andopportunities in detecting and tracking small objects in cislunarspace. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) initiatesa strategic plan to develop detecting and monitoring techniquesusing NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) tracking stations andthe Goldstone Solar System Radar (GSSR) This papersummarizes the work and preliminary results of detecting Cislunarobjects in four radar experiments in 2022 - 2023 using themeasurements collected with Open-Loop Receivers (OLRs) ofthe Deep Space Network Goldstone complex. The research aimsto evaluate the feasibility of using the GSSR with OLRconfiguration to detect objects in the cis-lunar environment,especially investigating the background clutter impact on thenear-moon object tracking. Due to its practical implementation,the time-frequency domain analysis, such as the Short TimeFourier Transform (STFT) or wavelet we demonstrated in thispaper, could be a powerful tool in real-time patternclassification for distinguishing between a target’s echoes andlunar clutter interferences. We evaluate the OLR’s cis-lunarobject tracking performance using the data collected from thefour experiments. We also assess the performance of Cis-lunartarget detection by comparing observations with the Dopplerfrequency estimates derived from the spacecraft’s orbitaldynamics, lunar noise temperature impacts, background cluttereffects, and Signal-to-Noise Ratio simulations. These researchfindings will improve our engineering knowledge and technicalconstraints for future detection and tracking of cis-lunartargets, including satellites,