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Australian Airborne Cal/val Experiment for SMOS
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The Advanced SCATterometer (ASCAT)

Source: http://www.meted.ucar.edu, accessed on 28th, Apr. 2010

The ASCAT, operating at C-band, provides continuity to the ERS-1 and ERS-2 scatterometers. The ASCAT is onboard the Metop-A satellite, which was launched into a sun-synchronous orbit on 19 October 2006 and has been operational since May 2007. ASCAT operates at a frequency of 5.255GHz in vertical polarisation. Its use of six antennas allows the simultaneous coverage of two swaths on either side of the satellite ground track, allowing for much greater coverage then its predecessors. It takes about 2 days to map the entire globe. A 50 km resolution soil moisture product is now operational from ASCAT, available from EUMETSAT.


Mission ASCAT
Sensor Microwave radar
Spacecraft Metop-A
Launch date 19th, Oct. 2006
Design life (year) 5
Orbit Polar orbit at an angle of 98.7° to the equator and at an altitude of 758km.
Space operations control centre European Meteorological Satellite Organisation (EUMESAT)
Center frequency (GHz) 5.255 (C-band)
Polarisation VV
Swath Two 520km swaths at each side, with 700km gap between them
Spatial resolution (km) 50
Temporal resolution ~2 days for covering global

ASCAT overpass time

ASCAT coverage for the Murrumbidgee Catchment during the AACES-2 campaign has been calculated by a Fortran program based on NORAD data for 29th, Aug. 2010, and is summarized in the table below. Date and time are in UTC. Aircraft flights were assumed to be conducted at 7:45 for descending overpass and 20:35 for ascending overpass.

  : Transect flight within 6 hours   : Patch flight within 6 hours
: Fully covered : Partially covered

UTC Date Start UTC Time Duration (s) Flight Patch
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
2010/09/08 11:23:20 176              
2010/09/08 22:41:50 229      
2010/09/09 12:42:51 208        
2010/09/10 0:01:50 148                
2010/09/10 12:21:32 281          
2010/09/10 23:40:10 263 T01  
2010/09/11 23:19:16 280                    
2010/09/12 11:39:49 263    
2010/09/12 22:58:32 276 P04      
2010/09/13 11:20:02 141                
2010/09/13 22:38:26 211          
2010/09/14 12:39:08 227      
2010/09/14 23:58:00 181              
2010/09/15 12:17:53 287              
2010/09/15 23:36:31 270 P05    
2010/09/16 11:56:50 294                  
2010/09/17 11:36:18 253  
2010/09/17 22:55:00 271      
2010/09/18 11:16:54 83                    
2010/09/18 22:35:03 190 P06          
2010/09/19 12:35:27 241  
2010/09/19 23:54:12 206          
2010/09/20 12:14:12 293                
2010/09/20 23:32:53 275 P07      
2010/09/21 11:53:15 289                
2010/09/21 23:12:04 280 P08                
2010/09/22 11:32:48 241    
2010/09/22 22:51:28 265    
2010/09/23 12:53:35 104                  
2010/09/23 22:31:44 162 T02            
2010/09/24 12:31:46 252  
2010/09/24 23:50:27 225        
2010/09/25 12:10:32 296                  
2010/09/25 23:29:16 278            
2010/09/26 11:49:39 284            
2010/09/26 23:08:27 281                  
Created: September 2010
Last Modified: September 2010
Maintainer: YE Nan, Ye.Nan@monash.edu