The Rongowai Level 1 Science Data Record Version 1.0 dataset is generated by the University of Auckland (UoA) Rongowai Science Payloads Operations Centre in New Zealand. This initiative is supported by NASA and the New Zealand Space Agency. The data collection process is conducted using the Next-generation receiver (NgRx) mounted on the Air New Zealand domestic aircraft Q300.
This Level 1 (L1) dataset contains the Version 1.0 geo-located Delay Doppler Maps (DDMs) calibrated into Power Received (Watts) and Bistatic Radar Cross Section (BRCS) expressed in units of meters squared from the Delay Doppler Mapping Instrument onboard an Air New Zealand domestic Q300 (tail number ZK-NFA). 20 DDMs are contained within a typical L1 netcdf corresponding to 10 Left-Hand-Circularly Polarized (LHCP) and 10 Right-Hand-Circularly Polarized (RHCP) channels. Other useful scientific and engineering measurement parameters include the co- and cross-polarized Normalized Bistatic Radar Cross Section (NBRCS) of the specular point, the Leading Edge Slope (LES) of the integrated delay waveform and the normalized waveforms. The L1 dataset contains a number of other engineering and science measurement parameters, including coherence detection and a coherence state metric, sets of quality flags/indicators, error estimates, Fresnel-zone geometry estimates (and thereby the estimated per-sample spatial resolution) as well as a variety of timekeeping, and geolocation parameters.Each netCDF data files corresponds to a single flight between airports within New Zealand (flight durations typically range between 45 min and 1hr 30min with a median of 7 flights/day) and measurements are reported at 1 second increments. Latency is approximately 1 days (or better) from the last recorded measurement time.