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| Launch |
Scheduled for April 2006
Vehicle: Delta II
Site: Western Test Range, Vandenberg Air Force Base |
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| Orbit: |
Altitude: 705 km
Inclination: 98.2 degrees
Period: 99 minutes
Sun-Synchronous |
| Vital Statistics: |
Weight: 999 kg
Power: 700 watts
Design Life: 22 months |
| Instruments: |
94 GHz Cloud Profiling Radar (CPR) |
The Cloud Profiling Radar (CPR)
The Cloud Profiling Radar (CPR) is a 94-GHz nadir-looking radar which measures the power backscattered by clouds
as a function of distance from the radar. The CPR will be developed jointly by NASA/JPL and the Canadian Space
Agency (CSA).
The design of the CPR is driven by the science objectives. The original requirements on CPR were: sensitivity
defined by a minimum detectable reflectivity factor of -30 dBZ, along-track sampling of 2 km, a dynamic range of 70 dB,
500 m vertical resolution and calibration accuracy of 1.5 dB. The minimum detectable reflectivity factor requirement was
reduced to -26 dBz when the mission was changed to put CloudSat into a higher orbit for formation flying.
CPR System Characteristics
| Nominal Frequency |
94 GHz |
| Pulse Width |
3.3 µsec |
| PRF |
4300 Hz |
| Minimum Detectable Z* |
-26 dBZ |
| Data Window |
0-25 km |
| Antenna Size |
1.95 m |
| Dynamic Range |
70 dB |
| Integration Time |
0.3 sec |
| Vertical Resolution |
500 m |
| Cross-track Resolution |
1.2 km |
| Along-track Resolution |
3.5 km |
| Along-track Sampling |
2 km |
| Data Rate |
15 kbps |
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*Equivalent radar reflectivity that gives a mean power equal to the standard
deviation after integration and noise subtraction. Atmospheric attenuation is not included.
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| The satellite will be put into orbit in double launch configuration with CLOUDSAT. |
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| The satellite's main characteristics are : |
| Payload |
Two channel Lidar (main instrument, 1 meter diameter telescope),
A Wide-Field Camera (WFC),
An Infrared Imager Radiometer (IIR) |
| Mass |
635 kg |
| Power |
560 W |
| S-band telemetry |
727 kbps for telemetry
4kbps for telecommands |
| X-band telemetry |
80 Mbit/s |
| Mission lifetime |
3 years |
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