From One Unit Tech Demo to Three Unit Class D Constellation: Operations Lessons from RainCube to INCUS DAR

INvestigation of Convective UpdraftS (INCUS) is a NASA Earth Venture Mission (EV-M) managed by JPL for the Colorado State University (CSU) PI. The INCUS mission will be comprised of a constellation of three observatories, each consisting of the spacecraft bus, and the Dynamic Atmospheric Radar (DAR). One observatory will also host the Dynamic Microwave Radiometer (DMR), based on the TEMPEST-D technology demonstrator. DAR is an evolution of RainCube (Radar In a Cubesat), with 7-beam cross-track scanning capability. The three observatories will fly in low-Earth-orbit (LEO) in a train formation to make measurements of tropical convective storms at three different times (0, 30 and 120 seconds). The temporal sampling of the DAR reflectivity profiles is used to measure reflectivity changes with time, allowing the detection of convective updrafts and the estimation of their transport of air and water between the surface and upper troposphere, known as Convective Mass Flux (CMF), and elucidates how this transport varies with storm type and throughout the storms’ lifecycles. The INCUS measurements will increase our understanding of how, when, where, and why storms form, and will allow us to better model and predict the role of convective storms in current and future climates.