NASA's CloudSat passed over Tropical Storm Isaias as it was strengthening back into a hurricane on Aug. 3, and before it made landfall in North Carolina. CloudSat revealed areas of heavy rain and ice particles in high, powerful ...
Environment
Aug 5, 2020
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7
NASA's CloudSat satellite captured a stunning image of Typhoon Yutu as it passed over the eye of the storm. The storm has since weakened to a tropical storm.
Environment
Oct 31, 2018
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6
A new NASA-led study helps answer decades-old questions about the role of smoke and human-caused air pollution on clouds and rainfall. Looking specifically at deep convective clouds—tall clouds like thunderclouds, formed ...
Earth Sciences
Sep 26, 2018
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71
Mission managers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, this week lowered the orbit of the nearly 12-year-old CloudSat satellite following the loss of one of its reaction wheels, which control its orientation ...
Space Exploration
Feb 26, 2018
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13
NASA's CloudSat Satellite passed over Super Typhoon Atsani as it moved through the western North Pacific Ocean. CloudSat looked at the super typhoon from the side, revealing heavy rainfall in a sloping eyewall.
Earth Sciences
Aug 20, 2015
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9
When Dolphin was a typhoon on May 16, NASA's CloudSat satellite completed a stunning eye overpass of Typhoon Dolphin in the West Pacific at 0412 UTC (12:12 a.m. EDT). By May 22, Dolphin's remnants were moving through the ...
Earth Sciences
May 21, 2015
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11
NASA's Aqua, TRMM and CloudSat dissected powerful Typhoon Neoguri as it moved through the Northwestern Pacific Ocean and affected southern Japan. The three satellites gathered data on rainfall, cloud heights, cloud extent, ...
Earth Sciences
Jul 8, 2014
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0
(Phys.org) —Every day, above our planet, five Earth-observing satellites rush along like trains on the same "track," flying minutes, and sometimes seconds, behind one another. They carry more than 15 scientific instruments ...
Earth Sciences
Jul 4, 2014
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0
Tropical Storm Amanda continues to weaken in the eastern Pacific from dry air and wind shear. NASA's CloudSat satellite captured a view of the storm from the side revealing heavy precipitation when the storm was the most ...
Earth Sciences
May 29, 2014
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Four NASA satellites provided data on Super-Typhoon Utor before and after the storm made landfall in the Philippines. Satellite imagery from NASA's Aqua, Terra, TRMM and CloudSat satellites captured information about the ...
Earth Sciences
Aug 12, 2013
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CloudSat is a NASA Earth observation satellite, which was launched on a Delta II rocket on 28 April 2006. It uses radar to measure the altitude and properties of clouds, adding to information on the relationship between clouds and climate in order to help resolve questions about global warming. CloudSat flies in formation in the "A Train", with several other satellites (Aqua, Aura, CALIPSO and the French PARASOL).
The mission was selected under NASA's Earth System Science Pathfinder program in 1999. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colorado, designed and built the spacecraft.
The main instrument on CloudSat is the Cloud Profiling Radar (CPR), a 94-GHz nadir-looking radar that measures the power backscattered by clouds as a function of distance from the radar. The radar instrument was developed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory(JPL) in Pasadena, California, with hardware contributions from the Canadian Space Agency. The overall design of the CPR is simple, well understood, and has a strong heritage from the many cloud radars already in operation in ground-based and airborne applications. Most of the design parameters and subsystem configurations are nearly identical to those for the Airborne Cloud Radar, which has been flying on the NASA DC-8 aircraft since 1998.
The CPR capitalizes on existing radar expertise and experience at JPL. Other radars already flown successfully or being developed by JPL include the Seasat SAR, SIR-A, SIR-B, SIR-C, the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, Cassini Radar, NSCAT, QuickScat, and SeaWinds.
CloudSat's primary mission was scheduled to continue for 22 months in order to allow more than one seasonal cycle to be observed. Based on radar lifetime data, NASA expects the radar to operate for three years with a 99 % probability.
CloudSat is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Colorado State University provides scientific leadership and science data processing and distribution. The cost of this project is approximately 200 million dollars.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
