Abstract
Passive microwave satellite observations provide critical information for global forecast models, particularly in cloudy and/or precipitating conditions. The limited temporal sampling provided by current operational polar orbiters cannot capture rapidly changing conditions such as the development of convective storms. This is a significant issue for open-ocean weather systems such as tropical cyclones and hurricanes that can only be effectively monitored from satellites. The recent development and demonstration of miniaturized microwave radiometers on-board low-cost CubeSat satellites has the potential to dramatically improve the temporal and spatial sampling of all-sky microwave observations by deploying a substantial constellation of satellites in low Earth orbit. Two constellations of 60 CubeSats in 550 km orbits are compared to the current operational microwave sensors. One approach employs all polar orbiters, while the other approach uses multiple inclination orbits for increased sampling over convective storm regions. Both approaches reduce average revisit times to approximately ~20-30 minutes globally, and the multi-inclination approach also provides irregular 5-10 minute sampling over selected latitudes. Improved global temporal sampling would provide all-sky observations to global forecast models over rapidly-changing environments, while millimeter-wave observations over convective storm regions would be valuable for both forecasting and studying the development of convective storms. This study demonstrated that a constellation of low-cost CubeSats with microwave radiometers has the potential to provide equivalent temporal resolution to that observed from sensors on geostationary orbit.
Highlights
RECENT technological advances have enabled the development of small and low-cost satellites capable of providing science-quality passive microwave observations from low Earth orbit (LEO), with similar capabilities to existing operational sensors
The current constellation of operational sensors providing global microwave observations consists of the Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS) on board the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (S-NPP) and NOAA-20 satellites, and the AMSU-A and Microwave Humidity Sounder (MHS) instruments on board the ESA/EUMETSAT MetOp-A/B/C satellites
The microwave radiometer on board the TEMPEST-D 6U CubeSat has demonstrated the capability of small, low-cost satellites and sensors to perform science-quality all-sky observations for global forecasts and other science applications
Summary
RECENT technological advances have enabled the development of small and low-cost satellites capable of providing science-quality passive microwave observations from low Earth orbit (LEO), with similar capabilities to existing operational sensors. While current operational microwave sensors are limited to two different LEO orbits, and a maximum of four observations per day for a given location, the dramatically lower cost of CubeSat satellites has the potential to provide much more frequent temporal sampling for improved global forecasting and hurricane/storm monitoring applications. The current constellation of operational sensors providing global microwave observations consists of the Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS) on board the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (S-NPP) and NOAA-20 satellites, and the AMSU-A and MHS instruments on board the ESA/EUMETSAT MetOp-A/B/C satellites. The purpose of the simulation results presented in this paper is to provide the reader with a sense of how microwave observations from a constellation of low-cost CubeSat satellites could provide dramatically improved temporal sampling for both global forecasting and storm tracking applications. The larger antenna afforded by the 12U spacecraft bus combined with a 550 km orbital altitude provides a spatial resolution of approximately 9 km for the four TEMPEST-D frequency channels near the 183.31 GHz water vapor absorption line
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