Initial Radiance Validation of the Microsized Microwave Atmospheric Satellite-2A
Name
MM2A radiance validation_Rev2_Final.pdf
Description
Accepted version
Size
1.29 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
376d93d497774c6d8f2a214a2c100b65
Author(s)
Crews, Angela
Blackwell, William J
Leslie, Robert Vincent
Grant, Michael
Osaretin, Idahosa A.
DiLiberto, Michael T.
Milstein, Adam B.
Leroy, Stephen
Gagnon, Amelia
Cahoy, Kerri
Date Issued
April 2021
Journal
IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing
Publisher
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Citation
Crews, Angela et al. "Initial Radiance Validation of the Microsized Microwave Atmospheric Satellite-2A." IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing 59, 4 (April 2021): 2703 - 2714. © 2021 IEEE
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
The Micro-Sized Microwave Atmospheric Satellite (MicroMAS-2A) is a 3U CubeSat that launched in January 2018 as a technology demonstration for future microwave sounding constellation missions, such as the NASA Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats (TROPICS) mission now in development. MicroMAS-2A has a miniaturized 1U 10-channel passive microwave radiometer with channels near 90, 118, 183, and 206 GHz for moisture and temperature profiling and precipitation imaging [4]. MicroMAS-2A provided the first CubeSat atmospheric vertical sounding data from orbit and to date is the only CubeSat to provide temperature and moisture sounding and surface imaging. In this paper, we analyze six segments of data collected from MicroMAS-2A in April 2018 and compare them to ERA5 reanalysis fields coupled with the Community Radiative Transfer Model (CRTM). This initial assessment of CubeSat radiometric accuracy shows biases relative to ERA5 with magnitudes ranging from 0.4 to 2.2 K (with standard deviations ranging from 0.7 to 1.2 K) for the four mid-tropospheric temperature channels and biases of 2.2 and 2.8 K (standard deviations 1.8 and 2.6 K) for the two lower tropospheric water vapor channels.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Lincoln Laboratory
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1109/tgrs.2020.3011200
