Preliminary Data Analysis from the Plains Elevated Convection At Night (PECAN) field campaign using NASA's X-Band Atmospheric Doppler Ground-based Radar (X-BADGER) System

Over the past two years, the X-BADGER system was built at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center primarily for long-term precipitation and microphysics studies for the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission ground validation, but also for short-term field campaign deployments. The 9.6 GHz radar is housed in a custom-built research trailer that is lightweight, rugged, and mobile for easy field campaign deployment. The radar has two beams: one zenith and one dual-polarized 30° off-zenith “forward-pointing” beam for comparison of radar reflectivity and cloud microphysics. The radar evolved from the ER-2 Doppler (EDOP) radar design, but has been upgraded to include a 1000W GaN solid-state power amplifier and a Remote Sensing Solutions iRAP digital receiver. X-BADGER addresses the absence of 3-cm wavelength radars, and in particular relatively non-attenuating precipitation profiling radars, in the current NASA ground validation radar suite. The team incorporated innovative methods to keep costs low while at the same time developing a state-of-the-art profiling radar. In addition to showcasing the development of X-BADGER, preliminary results from the radar's first deployment, the Plains Elevated Convection At Night (PECAN) field campaign and plans for future field campaign work will be presented.