TROPICS01 Pathfinder L1B Orbital Geolocated Native-Resolution Brightness Temperatures V1.0

The "Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats" (TROPICS) mission has a goal of providing nearly all-weather observations of three-dimensional temperature and humidity, as well as cloud ice and precipitation horizontal structure, at high temporal resolution to conduct high-value science investigations of tropical cyclones. The mission comprises a constellation of six identical Space Vehicles (SVs) conforming to the 3U form factor and hosting a passive microwave spectrometer payload. This dataset is produced from the Pathfinder satellite, a single 3U small satellite, which has launched previous to the constellation, on a sun-synchronous orbital plane.

Each SV hosts an identical high-performance spectrometer named the TROPICS Millimeter-wave Sounder (TMS) that will provide temperature profiles using seven channels near the 118.75-GHz oxygen absorption line, water vapor profiles using three channels near the 183-GHz water vapor absorption line, imagery in a single channel near 90 GHz for precipitation measurements (when combined with higher resolution water vapor channels), and a single channel near 205 GHz that is more sensitive to cloud-sized ice particles.

Each TROPICS netCDF file contains a granule of data with 81 spots and approximately 2880 scans, where a granule is defined as an orbit's worth of data.

Data and Resources

Additional Info

Field Value
Maintainer Kristan Morgan
Last Updated July 17, 2025, 16:39 (UTC)
Created March 31, 2025, 22:22 (UTC)
accessLevel public
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citation William J. Blackwell, MIT Lincoln Laboratory. 2023-03-01. TROPICS01BRTTL1B. Version 1.0. TROPICS01 Pathfinder L1B Orbital Geolocated Native-Resolution Brightness Temperatures V1.0. Greenbelt, MD. Archived by National Aeronautics and Space Administration, U.S. Government, Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC). https://doi.org/10.5067/239QXXSBUD41. https://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/datacollection/TROPICS01BRTTL1B_1.0.html. Digital Science Data.
creator William J. Blackwell, MIT Lincoln Laboratory
data-presentation-form Digital Science Data
graphic-preview-file https://docserver.gesdisc.eosdis.nasa.gov/public/project/Images/TROPICS01ANTTL1A_01.png
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harvest_source_title DNG Legacy Data
identifier C2622841366-GES_DISC
issued 2021-07-19
landingPage https://doi.org/10.5067/239QXXSBUD41
language {en-US}
metadata_type geospatial
modified 2021-07-19
programCode {026:001}
publisher NASA/GSFC/SED/ESD/GCDC/GESDISC
references {https://doi.org/10.5067/239QXXSBUD41}
release-place Greenbelt, MD
resource-type Dataset
series-name TROPICS01BRTTL1B
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source_hash e50682aa409b1bef689b1d2168672d0be92ed9bf116dd272d4d99d9e7b91f7a9
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spatial -180.0 -90.0 180.0 90.0
temporal 2021-07-19T00:00:00Z/2024-02-12T00:00:00Z
theme {"TROPICS (EVI-3)",geospatial}