IceCube’s 16-Month Spaceflight: Implication for Earth Decadal Survey Sciences

Successful spaceflight demonstration of the commercial 883-GHz radiometer on IceCube enables fast-track, low-cost implementation of submm-wave remote sensing for future Earth science missions. In the 2017 Decadal Survey (DS) targeted observables under Clouds, Convection and Precipitation (CCP), which address a principal source of uncertainty in projections of climate change, the requirement for process-level observation, coverage and sampling is challenging. The IceCube-like submm-wave remote sensing can make a critical contribution to the cost-capped DS science mission by filling the sensitivity gap between microwave and infrared sensors, and by providing the spatiotemporal sampling (via CubeSat constellation) needed for understanding fast CCP processes.

IceCube is a submm-wave technology demonstration on a 3U CubeSat, and has been flying since June 2017. As revealed in the 16-month spaceflight, the 883-GHz commercial receiver can last long in space and operate over a wide (18°C-30°C) temperature range. IceCube adopted a simple design without any scan mechanisms. It relied on the spacecraft to spin around the Sun vector for the maximum power input. The spinning CubeSat also provided periodical views between Earth and space for radiometric calibration. The CubeSat demonstrated various spin rates at 0.25°-3.3° per second as well as the full 24/7 operation of the 5.6-W cloud radiometer.