WMO OSCAR | Details for Instrument CATS

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Instrument: CATS

Instrument details

Acronym	CATS
Full name	Cloud-Aerosol Transport System
Purpose	To observe atmospheric pollution, dust, smoke, and aerosols
Short description	Three-wavelength lidar (1064, 532, and 355 nm)
Background	Follow-on of CALIOP on CALIPSO
Scanning Technique	4 views (right, left, fore-, aft-) within a circle of 3.5 km close to nadir
Resolution	350 m (horizontal), 30 m (vertical)
Coverage / Cycle	Limited to the latitude belt consequence of the ISS orbital inclination (51.6°)
Mass	500 kg	Power	1000 W	Data Rate	2 Mbps

Providing Agency	NASA
Instrument Maturity	Flown on an R&D satellite
Utilization Period:	2015 to 2017
Last update:	2022-07-25

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

International Space Station (NASA)
- ISS CATS (see instrument status) Feb 2015 - Oct 2017

Instrument classification

Earth observation instrument
Active and radio-occultation sensor
Lidar (Doppler lidar, backscatter lidar, lidar Dial, lidar altimeter)

WIGOS Subcomponents

Subcomponent 2
Lidar (Doppler and dual/triple-frequency backscatter)
Lidar (Backscatter - for atmosphere)

Mission objectives

Primary mission objectives

Aerosol Optical Depth
Aerosol column burden
Aerosol effective radius
Aerosol mass mixing ratio
Aerosol type
Aerosol volcanic ash
Aerosol volcanic ash Total Column
Cloud optical depth
Cloud top height
Height of the top of PBL
Height of the tropopause

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
Aerosol column burden*	2 - very high	Cloud sensitive.	UV/VIS/NIR backscatter lidar
Aerosol effective radius*	2 - very high	Cloud sensitive.	UV/VIS/NIR backscatter lidar
Aerosol mass mixing ratio*	2 - very high	Cloud sensitive.	UV/VIS/NIR backscatter lidar
Aerosol Optical Depth*	2 - very high	Cloud sensitive.	UV/VIS/NIR backscatter lidar
Aerosol type*	2 - very high	Cloud sensitive.	UV/VIS/NIR backscatter lidar
Cloud drop effective radius	5 - marginal	Low-density cloud only.. Infrequent coverage.	UV/VIS/NIR backscatter lidar, multi-beam. Mapping capability
Cloud ice	2 - very high	Low-density cloud only.. Infrequent coverage.	UV/VIS/NIR backscatter lidar, multi-beam. Mapping capability
Cloud ice Total Column	2 - very high	Low-density cloud only.. Infrequent coverage.	UV/VIS/NIR backscatter lidar, multi-beam. Mapping capability
Cloud ice effective radius	5 - marginal	Low-density cloud only.. Infrequent coverage.	UV/VIS/NIR backscatter lidar, multi-beam. Mapping capability
Cloud liquid water (CLW)	4 - fair	Low-density cloud only.. Infrequent coverage.	UV/VIS/NIR backscatter lidar, multi-beam. Mapping capability
Cloud liquid water (CLW) total column	4 - fair	Low-density cloud only.. Infrequent coverage.	UV/VIS/NIR backscatter lidar, multi-beam. Mapping capability
Cloud optical depth*	1 - primary	Low-density cloud only.. Infrequent coverage.	UV/VIS/NIR backscatter lidar, multi-beam. Mapping capability
Cloud top height*	1 - primary	Infrequent coverage.	UV/VIS/NIR backscatter lidar, multi-beam. Mapping capability
Freezing level height in clouds	2 - very high	Low-density cloud only.. Infrequent coverage.	UV/VIS/NIR backscatter lidar, multi-beam. Mapping capability
Height of the top of PBL*	1 - primary	Cloud sensitive.. Infrequent coverage.	UV/VIS/NIR backscatter lidar, multi-beam. Mapping capability
Height of the tropopause*	1 - primary	Cloud sensitive.. Infrequent coverage.	UV/VIS/NIR backscatter lidar, multi-beam. Mapping capability
Melting layer depth in clouds	2 - very high	Low-density cloud only.. Infrequent coverage.	UV/VIS/NIR backscatter lidar, multi-beam. Detected as discontinuity Mapping capability
PSC occurrence	1 - primary	Infrequent coverage.	UV/VIS/NIR backscatter lidar, multi-beam. Mapping capability
Aerosol volcanic ash*	2 - very high	Cloud sensitive.	UV/VIS/NIR backscatter lidar
Aerosol volcanic ash Total Column*	2 - very high	Cloud sensitive.	UV/VIS/NIR backscatter lidar