89th American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting

Tuesday, 13 January 2009: 1:45 PM
The Polar Communications and Weather (PCW) mission: a Canadian project to observe the Arctic region from a higly elliptical orbit
Room 230 (Phoenix Convention Center)
Louis Garand, EC, Dorval, QC, Canada; and G. Kroupnik
The Polar Communications and Weather (PCW) mission aims at providing continuous communications and meteorolical imagery north of 50 N from two satellites in a hihly elliptical orbit with a 12-h period. The mission is lead by the Canadian Space Agency. The presentation will focus on the meteorological aspect of the mission. Environment Canada is the main partner and eventual user of the meteorological data for numerical weather prediction, climate and environmental monitoring applications. A comprehensive User Requirement Document has been produced. Results from the completed Phase 0 (by industry, CSA and governmental agencies) will be presented. These cover various aspects such as orbital trade-offs, space weather implications, data transmission and ground architecture, pointing requirements, etc. The main payload is an advanced imager with about 20 channels (2 km infrared and 500-1000 m visible or near-infrared). The target refresh time for the imagery is 15 minutes. Secondary payloads should include a broadband radiometer, aurora imager and space weather instruments. The mission will open to international partnerships in the upcoming Phase A.

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