PolSIR Spacecraft - Nanosats Database

Spacecraft name	PolSIR
Type	CubeSat
Units or mass	12U
Organisation	Vanderbilt University
Institution	University
Entity	Academic / Education
Country	US
Manufacturer	AIVT by Blue Canyon
Partners	NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Costs	Up to $37 million, not including launch costs.
Oneliner	Monthly sampling of the diurnal cycle of ice clouds and their microphysical properties in the tropics and sub-tropics.
Description	PolSIR will address the following objectives: Constrain the seasonally influenced diurnal cycle amplitude, form, and timing of the ice water path (IWP) and particle diameter in tropical and sub-tropical ice clouds. Determine the diurnal variability of ice clouds in the convective outflow areas and understand relation to deep convection . Determine the relationship between shortwave and longwave radiative fluxes and the diurnal variability of ice clouds. Enable improvement of climate models by providing novel observations of the diurnal cycle of ice clouds, ultimately leading to improved climate modeling skills and increased fidelity of climate forecasts in support of critical decision-making. The PolSIR mission consists of two 12U CubeSats, each equipped with a cross-track scanning polarized submillimeter radiometer in the spectral range of 325–680 GHz. The two PolSIR satellites fly in separate, 52-degree inclination, non-sun-synchronous orbits, taking science measurements between ±35 degrees latitude enabling monthly sampling of the diurnal cycle of ice clouds and their microphysical properties in the tropics and sub-tropics. PolSIR’s observation concept provides significant benefits over the Program of Record (PoR) as well as synergies with future missions which will either be in sun-synchronous orbits, thus not sampling the diurnal cycle, or lack the observation frequencies needed to fully observe ice water path (IWP).
Sources	[1] [2] [3] [4]

Related Spacecraft

Spacecraft	Status	Rocket	Launch date	Orbit
PolSIR A (Polarized Submillimeter Ice-cloud Radiometer)	not launched	not launched	2027-12-30	not launched
PolSIR B (Polarized Submillimeter Ice-cloud Radiometer)	not launched	not launched	2027-12-30	not launched

Last modified: 2023-12-26