CloudCube: A Compact, Low-Cost Radar for Vertical Profiling of Clouds and Precipitation

CloudCube is a compact, low-cost, pulsed-compression, solid-state based radar that combines Ka-, W-, and G-band frequencies for vertical profiling of clouds, convection, and precipitation structures and dynamics from space. Designed to be compatible with low-power Small Satellite platforms, CloudCube's radar architecture is implemented using as few RF components as possible and uses a single-stage up/down conversion to achieve an overall reduction in the instrument's size, mass, and power. CloudCube is modular, allowing subsets of radar frequencies to be selected to meet targeted mission observables from a resource-limited platform. Each frequency band's radar module is designed to fit within a 3U volume. This new radar instrument also provides flexible and timely capabilities to complement other instruments (e.g., lidar/spectrometer/microwave radiometer) to expand the science return for other mission concepts that can be enhanced with the addition of radar observations.

CloudCube’s W-band breadboard radar participated in the CPEX-CV (Convective Processes Experiment – Cabo Verde) field campaign in September 2022, deployed on the NASA-DC 8 aircraft as a technology demonstration. CloudCube’s three frequency channels were recently deployed in the EPCAPE (Eastern Pacific Cloud Aerosol Precipitation Experiment) ground-based field. The deployment aimed to demonstrate for the first time the synergies between multiple high-frequency radars to derive cloud liquid mass, drop size, and water vapor using Ka, W, and G-band frequencies. The progress of the CloudCube radar development, as well as a discussion of the observations from the deployments, will be presented at the conference.