The RAVAN CubeSat mission: Advancing technologies for climate observation

Swartz, W. H.; Dyrud, L. P.; Lorentz, Steven R.; Wu, Dong L.; Wiscombe, W. J.; Papadakis, S. J.; Huang, Philip M.; Reynolds, E.; Smith, A. W.; Deglau, David M.

doi:10.1109/igarss.2015.7327031

Cited by 16 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…13(a and b) ] on the surface. Considering that the optical properties of the blackest coatings will hugely depend on the surface morphology and related light trapping abilities, the presence of these pores or holes will play an important role in trapping light via multipole reflections 104 inside the cavities.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Low reflectance of carbon nanotube and nanoscroll-based thin film coatings: a case study

et al. 2021

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Low reflectance of carbon nanotube and nanoscroll-based thin film coatings: a case study

et al. 2021

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“…Because there is no existing constellation for us to properly estimate potential instrument performance, and because development and demonstration of miniaturized broadband radiometers are ongoing research activities [ Swartz et al ., , ], we test a number of possible scenarios to investigate how fast recovery errors grow with varying instrument performance characteristics to provide a level of uncertainty that engineering development should aim for. These scenarios include adding random instrument noise and systematic calibration errors to synthetic satellite measurements for the case used in Figure .…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition, the slowly evolving, bright, and largely homogeneous polar regions present an ideal natural calibration target. Absolute calibration, required to track and correct for long‐term drift, would require a small subset of the constellation to have a highly accurate onboard calibration system or have absolute calibration transferred to the constellation from an external source, both of which are active research areas [ Wielicki et al ., ; Swartz et al ., , ].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Determination of global Earth outgoing radiation at high temporal resolution using a theoretical constellation of satellites

et al. 2017

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New, viable, and sustainable observation strategies from a constellation of satellites have attracted great attention across many scientific communities. Yet the potential for monitoring global Earth outgoing radiation using such a strategy has not been explored. To evaluate the potential of such a constellation concept and to investigate the configuration requirement for measuring radiation at a time resolution sufficient to resolve the diurnal cycle for weather and climate studies, we have developed a new recovery method and conducted a series of simulation experiments. Using idealized wide field‐of‐view broadband radiometers as an example, we find that a baseline constellation of 36 satellites can monitor global Earth outgoing radiation reliably to a spatial resolution of 1000 km at an hourly time scale. The error in recovered daily global mean irradiance is 0.16 W m−2 and −0.13 W m−2, and the estimated uncertainty in recovered hourly global mean irradiance from this day is 0.45 W m−2 and 0.15 W m−2, in the shortwave and longwave spectral regions, respectively. Sensitivity tests show that addressing instrument‐related issues that lead to systematic measurement error remains of central importance to achieving similar accuracies in reality. The presented error statistics therefore likely represent the lower bounds of what could currently be achieved with the constellation approach, but this study demonstrates the promise of an unprecedented sampling capability for better observing the Earth's radiation budget.

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“…The RAVAN CubeSat mission [30], comprising a lowcost radiometer based on a vertically aligned carbon nanotube absorber, demonstrates the use of a gallium closed phase-change cell; this flew in 2016 [31] to test new technologies for measuring the ERI.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Miniature gallium phase-change cells forin situthermometry calibrations in space

Pearce

Veltcheva

Peters

et al. 2019

Meas. Sci. Technol.

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The melting point of gallium, 29.7646 °C, makes it a very convenient fixed point for in situ calibration of thermometry in space applications such as Earth observation. NPL and RAL Space have collaborated to develop a miniature ‘phase-change cell’ using gallium. This report describes the modelling, construction and thermal metrological performance of miniature phase change gallium cells. These cells are intended to be embedded in the calibration blackbody structure, near the temperature sensors, for the purpose of in situ recalibration of those sensors. In this study, the blackbody structure was simulated by a monolithic aluminium block, and the phase-change cell and thermometers were embedded within the block. A thermal model of the system was also developed using Comsol Multiphysics® and validated against the experimental results, which provides useful information on further optimisation of the system. Under the (realistic) test conditions in this study, the phase-change cell, containing 2.1 g of gallium, was able to produce clearly defined melting curves with a duration of several hours and melting range of less than 5 mK, which represents sufficient performance for the envisaged application. Overall it has been shown that the current design methodology is fit for purpose and represents a solid foundation for raising the technology readiness level sufficiently for in-flight use.

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The RAVAN CubeSat mission: Advancing technologies for climate observation

Cited by 16 publications

References 4 publications

Low reflectance of carbon nanotube and nanoscroll-based thin film coatings: a case study

Low reflectance of carbon nanotube and nanoscroll-based thin film coatings: a case study

Determination of global Earth outgoing radiation at high temporal resolution using a theoretical constellation of satellites

Miniature gallium phase-change cells forin situthermometry calibrations in space

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