WMO OSCAR | Details for Instrument AOS-Sky radar

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Instrument: AOS-Sky radar

Instrument details

Acronym	AOS-Sky radar
Full name	AOS-Sky Single-frequency Doppler Radar
Purpose	Doppler radar for characterizing precipitating cloud and related vertical air motions
Short description	Single frequency nadir viewing doppler radar at 94 GHz (W-band) or 35 GHz (Ka-band).
Background	New development
Scanning Technique	Nadir viewing
Resolution	2km horizontal, 500m vertical
Coverage / Cycle
Mass		Power	Data Rate

Providing Agency	NASA
Instrument Maturity	Flown on an R&D satellite
Utilization Period:	2031 to 2036
Last update:	2023-10-30

Detailed characteristics

Satellites this instrument is flying on

Note: a red tag indicates satellites no longer operational, a green tag indicates operational satellites, a blue tag indicates future satellites

Atmosphere Observing System (NASA)
- AOS-Sky (see instrument status) Jan 2031 - 2036

Instrument classification

Earth observation instrument
Active and radio-occultation sensor
Cloud and precipitation radar

WIGOS Subcomponents

Subcomponent 1
Precipitation radars and cloud radars
Precipitation radar and cloud radar

Mission objectives

Primary mission objectives

Cloud ice
Cloud liquid water (CLW)

Evaluation of Measurements

The following list indicates which measurements can typically be retrieved from this category of instrument. To see a full Gap Analysis by Variable, click on the respective variable.

Note: table can be sorted by clicking on the column headers
Note: * Primary mission objective.

Variable	Relevance for measuring this variable	Operational limitations	Explanation
Accumulated precipitation (over 24 h)	5 - marginal	Light precipitation only.. Along-track only.. Time sampling to be interpolated by GEO.	W-band radar (around 94 GHz). Sensitive to very light precipitation
Cloud base height	3 - high	Low-density cloud only.. Along-track only.	W-band cloud radar around 94 GHz
Cloud drop effective radius	1 - primary	Low-density cloud only.. Along-track only.	W-band radar (around 94 GHz) for non-precipitating drops
Cloud ice*	4 - fair	Low-density cloud only.. Along-track only.	W-band radar for non-precipitating particles
Cloud ice Total Column	4 - fair	Low-density cloud only.. Along-track only.	W-band radar (around 94 GHz) for non-precipitating particles
Cloud ice effective radius	1 - primary	Low-density cloud only.. Along-track only.	W-band radar (around 94 GHz) for non-precipitating particles
Cloud liquid water (CLW)*	1 - primary	Low-density cloud only.. Along-track only.	W-band radar (around 94 GHz) for non-precipitating drops
Cloud liquid water (CLW) total column	1 - primary	Low-density cloud only.. Along-track only.	W-band radar (around 90 GHz) for non-precipitating drops
Cloud top height	5 - marginal	Dense cloud only.. Along-track only.	W-radar (around 94 GHz) for direct measurement of cloud top height
Freezing level height in clouds	1 - primary	Low-density cloud only.. Along-track only.	W-band radar (around 94 GHz). Detected as "bright-band"
Melting layer depth in clouds	1 - primary	Low-density cloud only.. Along-track only.	W-band radar (around 94 GHz). Detected as "bright-band"
Precipitation (liquid or solid)	5 - marginal	Light precipitation only.. Along-track only.	W-band radar (around 94 GHz) for small drops or ice particles
Precipitation intensity at surface (liquid or solid)	5 - marginal	Light precipitation only.. Along-track only.	W-band radar (around 94 GHz). Sensitive to boundary between precipitating and non-precipitating convective clouds