Feasibility of Starlink Transmissions for Passive Airborne Targets Detection

Starlink is one of the new option for passive radar, which is a system including two Non-Geostationary orbit (NGSO) constellations, to provide high speed internet to end-users. In this paper, the feasibility of using these satellite emissions as illuminator of opportunity (IoO) for passive radar to achieve the detection of airborne targets is investigated. Three aspects are taken into consideration: satellite's link power budget, detectable time and range and Doppler migrations generated during long time integration (LTI). In addition, results obtained from Starlink are compared to those of GNSS-based system to gain an appreciation of relative merits and drawbacks. The results show that Starlink-based system has a certain potential in the application of airborne targets detection.