65th IHC Booklet/Program (pdf - 4.9MB) - Office of the Federal ...

Coming soon: AMSU in GEO
Bjorn Lambrigtsen
(lambrigtsen@jpl.nasa.gov)
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
As a result of NASA’s multi-million dollar investments in the development of the Geostationary
Synthetic Thinned Array Radiometer (GeoSTAR) at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the
technology required to build a geostationary microwave sounder – “AMSU in GEO” – is now
sufficiently mature that a space mission can be initiated. A JPL-led effort is under way to
develop a low-cost GeoSTAR mission under the new NASA “Ventures” program in partnership
with NOAA and European colalborators. If a Ventures proposal is successful, the development
could start in 2012, and launch as a hosted payload would take place in the 2016-2018 time
frame. The exact timing depends on the availability of hosting oppurtunities. This mission will
be focused on storms in the North Atlantic: hurricanes during the summer and mid-latitude
storms the rest of the year. With data products ranging from AMSU-equivalent brightness
temperatures to derived temperature, water vapor and reflectivity profiles, it will be possible to
monitor the intensity and structure of storms continuously. Hurricane applications range from
real-time detection of rapid intensification to accurate estimates of vortex location and the
structure of the inner core for enhanced forecast initialization, and this mission can contribute
significantly to the Hurricane Forecast Improvement Project (HFIP). General numerical weather
prediction is also expected to benefit from this mission, particularly from precipitation and
height-registered wind-vector products. We discuss the status of the GeoSTAR development,
plans for a Ventures mission, and opportunities to participate.
Copyright 2011 California Institute of Technology. Government sponsorship acknowledged.
Poster Session – Page 10