TK designed and built - for AIRBUS in Germany - the feed optics and multiplexer as well as the
transmitted power monitoring of JAXA's 94 GHz Doppler radar now flying on the EarthCARE
(Earth Cloud Aerosol and Radiation Explorer) mission - well over a decade ago. The hardware
is now, at last, in polar orbit.
And NiCT/JAXA have now released "First-Light" images of the Dopplar radar in action
The sample cloud was observed over the Pacific Ocean, just east of Japan, on 13 June 2024.
The BBC's Jonathan Amos published a useful article on the need for these measurements and
JAXA's Youtube video can be seen here,
TK design and made, along with the mutiplexer, the secondary mirror seen above feeding the
main dish
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched EarthCARE from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on
the 28th May.
ESA’s EarthCARE mission carries a suite of instruments to answer some critical scientific questions
related to the role that clouds and aerosols play in reflecting incident solar radiation back out to space
and trapping infrared radiation emitted from Earth’s surface [1]. Although clouds play an extremely
important role in atmospheric heating and cooling, they remain one of the biggest mysteries – in fact
the least understood factor – in our understanding of how the atmosphere drives the climate system.
The four instruments will scan the atmosphere, as illustrated in this graphic, from a low orbital height
of 393 Km - low, to increase the resolution of the instruments
Our quasi-optical circular polarizing feed antenna - facing the 2.5M dish - is the small black
structure in the middle of the base of the instrument
More can be learned in an ESA interactive link here and the mission overview here
[1] Clouds within a mile or so of Earth’s surface tend to cool more than they warm. These low,
thicker clouds mostly reflect the Sun’s heat. This cools Earth’s surface.
Clouds high up in the atmosphere have the opposite effect: They tend to warm Earth more
than they cool. High, thin clouds trap some of the Sun’s heat. This warms Earth’s surface.
Images - JAXA and ESA, acknowledged