《Design and observations of satellite laser ranging system for》.pdf

V O ~42. NO. 2 SCIENCE IN CHINA (Series A) February 1999 Design and observations of satellite laser ranging system for daylight tracking at Shanghai Observatory * YANG Fumin ($fit@ 1, XIAO Chikun ( 8 $? .@i) , CHEN Wanzhen ( %Re), ZHANG Zhongping (!%,7!?\@), TAN Detong (@@m) , GONG Xiangdong (B[;iJ%), CHEN Juping ( EST),HUANG Li (3 3) and ZHANG Jianhua (@@*) (Shanghai Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200030, China) Received June 26, 1998 Abstract The first satellite laser ranging system for daylight tracking in China was set up at Shanghai Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Both false alarm probability due to strong background noises and detection probability of the laser returns with single photon level from satellite in daylight for our system are analysed. The system design and performance characteristics of subsystems, adopted techniques and satellite ranging observations are given. Keywords: satellite laser ranging, daylight ranging, detection probability. The principal of satellite laser ranging (SLR) is based on the measurement of the time inter- vals of the laser pulses going back and forth from ground stations to the satellites equipped with laser reflectors. The ranges of satellites can be reduced from the time intervals and the velocity of light. In general, the return signals from these laser satellites far from the stations with 1000- 20 000 km are weak, say dozens of photons, sometimes only one photon. The early SLR systems did the observations only in night time. It is well known that almost one half portion of the