Title :
The HYDROS radiometer/radar instrument
Author :
Spencer, Michael W. ; Njoku, Eni ; Entekhabi, Dara ; Doiron, Terence ; Piepmeier, Jeffrey ; Girard, Ralph
Author_Institution :
Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Technol., Pasadena, CA, USA
Abstract :
The science objectives of the Hydrosphere State Mission (HYDROS) are to provide frequent, global measurements of surface soil moisture and surface freeze/thaw state. In order to adequately measure these geophysical quantities, the key instrument requirements were determined by the HYDROS science team to be: (1) Dual-polarization L-Band radiometer measurements at 40 km resolution, (2) Dual-polarization L-Band radar measurements at 3 km resolution, and (3) A wide swath to insure global three-day refresh time for these measurements (1000 km swath at the selected orbit altitude of 670 km). As an optimal solution to this set of instrument requirements, a relatively large, 6-meter, conically-scanning reflector antenna architecture was selected for the instrument design. The deployable mesh antenna is shared by both the radiometer and radar instruments by using a single L-Band feed.
Keywords :
moisture; radiometry; reflector antennas; remote sensing by radar; soil; HYDROS; Hydrosphere State Mission; conically-scanning reflector antenna; dual-polarization L-Band radiometer/radar measurement; mesh antenna; single L-Band feed; surface freeze/thaw state; surface soil moisture; Extraterrestrial measurements; Geophysical measurements; Instruments; L-band; Moisture measurement; Radar antennas; Radiometry; Soil measurements; Surface soil; Time measurement;
Conference_Titel :
Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, 2004. IGARSS '04. Proceedings. 2004 IEEE International
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-8742-2
DOI :
10.1109/IGARSS.2004.1369124
