Replacing Arecibo — The Future of Planetary Defense

Photo by Alexander Andrews on Unsplash

Arecibo was most often thought of as a radio telescope, but the observatory, which collapsed this week, was also a radar telescope. As such it was a key part of our planetary defense network.

Planetary defense is in its infancy, but the goal is to ensure that we don’t go the way of the dinosaurs by detecting and ultimately deflecting dangerous objects before they hit the Earth.

Arecibo was not the only facility used to track asteroids, but its loss will put a dent in the program.

Yet, there’s some amazing work being done in planetary defense. NASA is already weighing options for an Arecibo replacement, which will likely be similar to the newer Goldstone facility.

So, let’s start by talking about that.

The Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex

The Goldstone complex’s primary purpose is not planetary defense…it’s communicating with long distance probes.

However, the site also holds the Goldstone Solar System Radar. This uses a 500-kEW X-band transmitter and low-noise receiver attached to a 70-m antenna. (This is considerably smaller than Arecibo’s dish, obviously).

The radar system has been used to locate sites for Mars landers, but also to…