Title: CloudCube: A Multi-frequency Solid-State Radar for Affordable Cloud and Precipitation Observations from Space
Presenting Author: Raquel Rodriguez Monje
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
Co-Author(s): Ken B. Cooper, Robert Beauchamp, Juan Manuel Socuellamos, Srinivas Prasad Mysore Nagaraja, Matthew Lebsock and Simone Tanelli

Abstract:
CloudCube is intended to be the first, compact, low-cost, pulsed-compression, solid-state based radar that combines three frequency channels Ka-, W- and G-band (35/94/239 GHz) for vertical profiling of clouds, convection and precipitation structures and dynamics from space. CloudCube's radar architecture is designed so that it can be implemented using as few RF components as possible and to be compatible with low-power, Small Satellite platforms. To achieve that, CloudCube's radar electronics use a single-stage up/down conversion, where a low frequency IF (intermediate frequency) at a few MHz is directly upconverted into the millimeter band signal. This approach leads to an overall reduction in the instrument's size, mass and power compared to more conventional multi-stage up/down conversion schemes. CloudCube is also designed to be modular, allowing the selection of subsets of the radar frequencies to meet targeted mission observables from a resource-limited platform. Each frequency band's radar module is being 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 will also be deployed in the EPCAPE (Eastern Pacific Cloud Aerosol Precipitation Experiment) ground-based field campaign that will take place northern San Diego, California. The progress of the CloudCube radar development, as well as a discussion of the observations from the deployments, will be presented at the forum.