| Paper: | FR-A1.16 |
| Session: | Instruments and Calibration (Posters) |
| Time: | Friday, March 30, 09:00 - 10:20 |
| Presentation: |
Poster
|
| Topic: |
Advanced radiometer techniques: |
| Title: |
A cutting-edge sub-mm radiometer on-board MetOp-SG satellites: status and performance of the Ice Cloud Imager (ICI) |
| Authors: |
Massimo Labriola; Airbus DS | | |
| | Marc Bergadà; Airbus DS | | |
| | Miguel Angel Palacios; Airbus DS | | |
| | Raquel Gonzalez; Airbus DS | | |
| | Ulf Klein; European Space Agency | | |
| Abstract: |
The Ice Cloud Imager (ICI) for MetOp-SG satellites series, led by Airbus DS España as Prime contractor, is now approaching the instrument Critical Design Review (CDR).
The instrument is a conically scanning total power microwave radiometer measuring the upwelling Earth radiances in 13 channels grouped in five receivers placed around the 183, 325 and 448 GHz water vapour line and the 243 and 664 GHz window channels, the latter two having dedicated horns for V and H linear polarization. It is conceived to retrieve cloud ice water path (IWP), cloud altitude and ice particle properties filling the major gap in the current global climate observing system (GCOS) and offering valuable data for the operational numerical weather prediction (NWP) services. This is a first-class instrument to use such frequency range for space Earth observation.
The instrument nominally rotates at 45 rpm and it measures the Earth scene over an azimuth angular sector of ± 65º resulting in a forward direction swath of around 1750 km; every turn it also views an internal warm on-board calibration target (OBCT) and the cold space via a dedicated cold sky reflector (CSR).The conical scan principle ensures that the instantaneous field of view of each channel (16 km footprint average size) are observed with the same incidence angle 53º at the Earth surface largely eliminating any view angle bias. ICI is capable of acquiring submillimeter radiances in all weather and illumination conditions and, after an appropriate on-ground raw data processing, to produce calibrated and geo-located L1b data expressed in units of Planck brightness temperature.
Five instrument models will be manufactured and tested: a Structural and Thermal Model (STM) to be qualified during the first half of 2018, an Engineering Model (EM) which testing campaign is expected along 2019, and three flight models - one Protoflight (PFM) and two recurrent models (FM2 and FM3) – which will be launched in 7-year steps to guarantee the provision of operational meteorological data over the next two decades.
The article first presents the system design status and the predicted performances as well as the end-to-end calibration and verification key aspects. The paper then discusses the instrument development model(s) philosophy and the subsystems test results, reviews the adequacy of the flight hardware before initiating the assembly, integration and test phases. |
