News: Radio Astronomy Notice

CloudSat is operating during the sunlit portion of each orbit, but it does NOT operate during the nighttime. The web-based orbit prediction tool can be used to determine when CloudSat will fly over your observatory:

http://www-angler.larc.nasa.gov/cloudsat/

CloudSat is part of A-Train (as of May 15, 2012) and in mid-July we will perform an inclination increase burn to arrest the current spacecraft nodal precession (Mean Local Time of the Ascending Node or MLTAN); this final burn will enable the overlap of CloudSat's CPR footprint with the CALIPSO liar footprint approximately 50% of the time.

The CPR boresight is offset along-track from the satellite nadir by 0.16 deg, and this configuration is stable. That means that the CPR boresight is approximately ~1.9 km ahead of the sub-satellite (nadir) position.

If you have any additional questions, please contact me at:

dvane@jpl.nasa.gov

Sincerely,
Deborah Vane
CloudSat Project Manager

Last Updated: May 17, 2012.