Radar detectability of asteroids: A survey of opportunities for 1977 through 1987

The capability of Earth-based radar to study asteroids is assessed with respect to determining the number of detectible objects and the number of detectable events during the next 10 years. Bar graphs have been prepared showing the number of events and objects falling into 5-db detectability slots based both on estimates of minimum distance and on direct calculations using known orbital elements. These indicate that the Goldstone radar system operating at 3.5-cm wavelength should be able to detect roughly 18 different asteroids at 34 favorable opportunities during the next 10 years. The Arecibo radar system operating at 12.5-cm wavelength may be able to detect 60 asteroids at approximately 97 favorable opportunities in the 10-year period. This sample is sufficiently large that classification of types and correlation with optical data should be possible. The detectability margin for many objects should be large enough to permit more refined analysis of the radar spectrograms. Estimates of the average surface roughness, rotation rate, and direction of the polar axis, as well as estimates of range and Doppler frequency offsets, which can be used to refine the orbital elements, should be otainable for many objects. Equations are given which indicate the variances expected for measurements of cross section, center frequency, and bandwidth measured either singly or jointly. These are functions of the noise-to-signal ratio and other physical parameters such as the backscattering law. Curves are given based on backscattering functions of the form cosⁿθ.