[M-SD35] Future Missions of Satellite Earth Observation

[MSD35-09] Small Precipitation Radar Satellite

*Kaya Kanemaru¹, Kinji Furukawa², Moeka Yamaji², Nobuhiro Takahashi³ (1.National Institute of Information and Communications Technology , 2.Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, 3.Nagoya University)

Keywords:Precipitation radar, Small satellite, Rain

Application of Global Satellite Mapping of Precipitation (GSMaP) provided by Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is expanded in various fields so that improvements of precipitation accuracy of GSMaP is required to accommodate current (and potential) use requests for further expansion of application using GSMaP. One solution is a concept of the radar-GSMaP. Precipitation radar observation from space enables vertical structure of precipitation over ocean and surface types. Since accurate estimates in precipitation over the land surface by passive microwave imager from space is difficult, precipitation observation by radars is expected to improve GSMaP performance, especially over land surface. Therefore, we propose small precipitation radar satellite by making use of heritage of dual-frequency precipitation radar (DPR) developed by JAXA and National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT). Small precipitation radar satellites enable increase in sampling frequency by precipitation radar and effect of mass production in terms of development cost. For phased array radar, the grating lobe, which is undesirable directionality of antenna gain against the main beam, is given when the interval of antenna element is large. Here, we investigate validity of spaceborne precipitation radar observation while the occurrence of the grating lobe is allowed.