| Paper: | TH-A1.4 |
| Session: | Applications of Radiometry I |
| Time: | Thursday, March 29, 09:00 - 10:20 |
| Presentation: |
Poster
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| Topic: |
Theory, physical principles and electromagnetic models: |
| Title: |
MASC AIRBORNE DEPLOYMENTS |
| Authors: |
Sharmila Padmanabhan; NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory | | |
| | Robert Stachnik; NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory | | |
| | Qing Yue; NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory | | |
| | Jonathan Jiang; NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory | | |
| | Richard Cofield; NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory | | |
| | Hui Su; NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory | | |
| | Boon H. Lim; NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory | | |
| Abstract: |
Our current observing system is not well-suited for observing extreme events globally due to the sparse sampling and in-homogeneity of ground-based in-situ observations and the infrequent revisit time of satellite data. The need is high-temporal resolution, uniformly sampled observations of weather extremes, such as extreme precipitation events, temperature extremes, tropical and extra-tropical cyclones among others.
The Microwave Atmospheric Sounder on CubeSat (MASC) directly addresses the need to produce smaller, cheaper and capable passive microwave radiometer instruments for agile deployment in a constellation or as a stand-alone free-flyer configured to meet a targeted science need. It is a low-cost compact multi-frequency CubeSat microwave radiometer system, leveraging recent developments in MMIC receiver technology and digital back ends at JPL.
MASC is an 8-channel millimeter-wave sounder with channels near the 118 GHz oxygen line and 183 GHz water vapor line to measure atmospheric temperature and humidity. It has a cross-track scanned reflector scanning at 30 RPM to perform radiometric calibration during every scan. There are two calibration targets implemented in the airborne version that allow us to measure ambient as well 333 K. The radiometric accuracy is about ~1K.
MASC was designed and built at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 2014 under the internal research funding and uses advanced technology to achieve excellent performance in a small package that would fit in a 6U CubeSat. It was first deployed in the Plains Elevated Convection at Night (PECAN) campaign in July 2015. It also participated in the Olympic Mountains Experiment (OLYMPEX) campaign from November 10 to December 22, 2015 and the NASA Convective Processes experiment (CPEX) campaign during June 2017. In both campaign MASC flew as a payload on the NASA DC-8 aircraft.
In this paper, we will discuss the deployment details and the performance of MASC during the campaigns. MASC provides observations similar to those obtained with microwave sounders currently operating on orbit such as GPM-GMI and this offers an opportunity for valuable comparative analysis. In addition MASC observations can also be compared with measurements from the Conical Scanning Millimeter-wave Imaging Radiometer (CoSMIR), Airborne Precipitation Radar (APR), dropsondes and High-Altitude MMIC Sounding Radiometer (HAMSR) instrument which flew on the one or more of the above mentioned campaigns.
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