IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing (Jan 2020)

Completion of the AMR-C Instrument for Sentinel-6

  • Frank Maiwald,
  • Shannon T. Brown,
  • Timothy Koch,
  • Lance Milligan,
  • Pekka Kangaslahti,
  • Erich Schlecht,
  • Anders Skalare,
  • Matthew Bloom,
  • Violet Torossian,
  • John Kanis,
  • Shannon Statham,
  • Shawn Kang,
  • Parag Vaze

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1109/JSTARS.2020.2991175
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 13
pp. 1811 – 1818

Abstract

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The advanced microwave radiometer-climate quality (AMR-C) is a part of the European Sentinel-6A/B series, a collaboration between ESA and NASA, of two Earth-observing satellites, which will be launched in 2020 and 2025. Compared to its predecessor, Jason-3, the two AMR-C radiometer instruments have an external calibration system which enables higher radiometric stability accomplished by moving the secondary mirror between well-defined targets. Sentinel-6 allows continuing the study of the ocean circulation, climate change, and sea-level rise for at least another decade. Besides the external calibration for the AMR heritage radiometer (18.7, 23.8, and 34 GHz channels), the AMR-C contains a high-resolution microwave radiometer (HRMR) with radiometer channels at 90, 130, and 168 GHz. This subsystem allows for a factor of 5× higher spatial resolution at coastal transitions. This article presents a brief description of the instrument and the measured performance of the completed AMR-C-A and AMR-C-B instruments.

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