The Improved Capabilities of the Goldstone Solar System Radar Observatory

The Goldstone Solar System Radar (GSSR) facility is the largest fully steerable ground-based radar in the world for non-classified high-resolution ranging and imaging of planetary and small-body targets. Over the years the use of the GSSR to detect and characterize Near-Earth Objects (NEO) has become critical to keep track of potential Earth-impacting hazardous NEO. This manuscript relates the specific modifications made to the GSSR hardware and procedures in the last few years, as well as the new capabilities derived from those upgrades: reduced complexity in remote operations, increased experiment design versatility, and increased performance on bistatic radar experiments from GSSR to other complexes. In addition, we dedicate a section to provide an update on the current and near- future GSSR power capabilities as new klystrons are installed. The work detailed in this manuscript is intended to reach the broader science community in order to communicate how those modifications and the derived new capabilities can make science experiments more successful.