TY - JOUR
T1 - Scientific Products from the First Radar in a CubeSat (RainCube)
T2 - Deconvolution, Cross-Validation, and Retrievals
AU - Sy, Ousmane O.
AU - Tanelli, Simone
AU - Durden, Stephen L.
AU - Peral, Eva
AU - Sacco, Gian Franco
AU - Chahat, Nacer E.
AU - Hristova-Veleva, Svetla
AU - Heymsfield, Andrew J.
AU - Bansemer, Aaron
AU - Knosp, Brian
AU - Dobrowalski, Gregg
AU - Li, Peggy P.
AU - Vu, Quoc
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 1980-2012 IEEE.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - RainCube (Radar In a CubeSat), developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and launched in 2018, was a technology demonstration supported by NASA. RainCube's radar is the first spaceborne profiling radar fitting on a platform as small as a 6U ( $10\times 20\times 30\,\,\mathrm {cm^{3}}$ ) CubeSat. This article shows how, despite its smaller size compared to traditional spaceborne radars, RainCube was able to measure clouds and precipitation in the mid-latitude and intertropical regions. Moreover, since RainCube's measurements are oversampled in the along-track (AT) direction, the horizontal resolution can be enhanced by a robust Wiener deconvolution algorithm. After more than two and a half years of operation, the RainCube mission came to an end on 24 December 2020. The collected record of Ka-band radar profiles compares favorably to collocated measurements from other ground-based and spaceborne radars both radiometrically and geophysically. The examples of multiradar collocations also provide some insights into the potential of constellations of spaceborne radars to study clouds and storms.
AB - RainCube (Radar In a CubeSat), developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and launched in 2018, was a technology demonstration supported by NASA. RainCube's radar is the first spaceborne profiling radar fitting on a platform as small as a 6U ( $10\times 20\times 30\,\,\mathrm {cm^{3}}$ ) CubeSat. This article shows how, despite its smaller size compared to traditional spaceborne radars, RainCube was able to measure clouds and precipitation in the mid-latitude and intertropical regions. Moreover, since RainCube's measurements are oversampled in the along-track (AT) direction, the horizontal resolution can be enhanced by a robust Wiener deconvolution algorithm. After more than two and a half years of operation, the RainCube mission came to an end on 24 December 2020. The collected record of Ka-band radar profiles compares favorably to collocated measurements from other ground-based and spaceborne radars both radiometrically and geophysically. The examples of multiradar collocations also provide some insights into the potential of constellations of spaceborne radars to study clouds and storms.
KW - Atmospheric radar
KW - clouds and precipitation
KW - CubeSat
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85105868706
U2 - 10.1109/TGRS.2021.3073990
DO - 10.1109/TGRS.2021.3073990
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85105868706
SN - 0196-2892
VL - 60
JO - IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing
JF - IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing
ER -