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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(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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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
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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On Monday, Oct. 29, Hurricane Sandy was ravaging the Mid-Atlantic with heavy rains and tropical storm force winds as it closed in for landfall. Earlier, NASA's CloudSat satellite passed over Hurricane Sandy and its radar ...
Earth Sciences
Oct 30, 2012
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Three NASA satellites are keeping tabs on Typhoon Megi and noticed that it was strengthening in the South China Sea today, but increasing wind shear may again weaken the system over the next couple of days.
Earth Sciences
Oct 20, 2010
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Tropical Storm Nicole was a tropical storm for around 6 hours before it weakened into a remnant low pressure area and is now off the Florida coast. NASA Satellite imagery captured different views of Nicole's clouds as the ...
Earth Sciences
Sep 30, 2010
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NASA's CloudSat satellite captured a profile of Hurricane Karl as it began making landfall in Mexico today. The satellite data revealed very high, icy cloud tops in Karl's powerful thunderstorms, and moderate to heavy rainfall ...
Earth Sciences
Sep 17, 2010
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In late July 2010, flooding caused by heavy monsoon rains began across several regions of Pakistan. According to the Associated Press, the floods have affected about one-fifth of this country of more than 170 million. Tens ...
Earth Sciences
Aug 23, 2010
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Nida is battling to keep its typhoon strength in the Western Pacific Ocean as wind shear continues to tear at the storm and weaken it. NASA's CloudSat satellite noticed that Nida's cloud tops are not as high as they were ...
Earth Sciences
Dec 1, 2009
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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
