Hey, science side of tumblr: legitimate question of scientific and technological curiosity here!
What would it take to convert a radio telescope into a radar telescope?
For context: I’m writing, and what I’m writing involves radio telescopes. I had assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that most radio telescopes could be used as both receivers and transmitters, believing due to the parabolic-dish nature of many of both such devices, there’d be a relative ease of conversion. But thinking about it, the circuits required to transmit and receive radio waves are quite different from one another. So that nixes my initial thoughts.
However, I just found out about the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex, aka the Goldstone Observatory, which not only uses parabolic radio antennae as radio telescopes, but also (and mainly) as a communications array for NASA to keep in touch and transfer data to/from its satellites and deep-space probes. Structurally, the Goldstone radio antennae look not so different from those at, say, the Green Bank Observatory, but I know there’s some sort of equipment that sets them apart.
What I’d like to know is, what equipment is it that sets these dual-function dishes apart, exactly, and what would it take to convert a radio telescope for that function?
Thanks!
( @nasa longshot tag but- )
