Pre-formulation Planning for CLARREO

The Climate Absolute Radiance And Refractivity Observatory (CLARREO) mission addresses the challenge of ensuring that the calibration accuracy of the Earth Observing System is sufficient to rigorously observe climate change on decade time scales and to use decadal change observations to determine the accuracy of climate change projections. The CLARREO mission accomplishes this through highly accurate decadal change observations traceable on-orbit to SI standards for knowledge of uncertainty and comparison with future measurements. In addition, CLARREO will provide a set of reference infrared and reflected solar spectrometers in orbit capable of improving NOAA's and other operational systems by establishing the traceability to on-orbit standards that are essential for the interoperability, consistency, and accuracy of the global earth observation system.

The CLARREO Project demonstrated readiness to begin Phase A at a fully successful Mission Concept Review in November 2010. Due to budget considerations, CLARREO remains in an extended pre-Phase A with no defined launch readiness date. NASA continues to fund efforts to refine the mission design and to look for cost-effective alternative implementation strategies. In addition, the CLARREO Science Definition Team (SDT) was selected in January 2011. The SDT has made considerable progress in advancing the rigor of climate Observing System Simulation Experiments (OSSEs), defining the complementary applications of CLARREO IR, RS, and GNSS-RO observations for climate signal benchmarking and climate model testing, advancing the procedures for reference intercalibration, and in assessing the stability of climate retrievals.

This talk will provide an update on mission planning for CLARREO including recent science results, the status of instrument risk reduction, potential alternate mission options, international partnering opportunities, and recent advances in defining CLARREO- related applications.