EarthCARE

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EarthCARE#

EarthCARE (Earth Clouds, Aerosols and Radiation Explorer) is an earth observation satellite of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). Equipped with four instruments, the EarthCARE satellite mission has been designed to make a range of different measurements that together will shed new light on the role that clouds and aerosols play in regulating Earth’s climate. It was launched on 28th of May, 2024 by SpaceX with the Falcon 9 rocket.

Instrument#

To achieve these scientific goals, EarthCARE orbits the Earth at an altitude of 390 km and offers an unprecedented set of active and passive remote sensing instruments on a single satellite platform:

  • the atmospheric lidar ATLID, a high spectral resolution lidar (HSRL), operating at 355 nm wavelength, with 30 m beam diameter on the ground and polarization measurement,

  • the 94 GHz Doppler CPR (cloud profiling radar) with 500 m measuring distance and 500 m vertical resolution,

  • the multi-spectral imager MSI with seven channels in the solar and thermal spectral range, 500 m resolution in the nadir range and 150 km coverage,

  • the broadband radiometer BBR with short- and long-wave channels, three different viewing directions along the ground track and 10 km pixel size on the ground.

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