This design starts with commercial 85- to 115-GHz sources that are amplified to as much as 250 mW using power amplifiers developed for the Herschel Space Observatory. The frequency is then tripled using a novel waveguide GaAs Schottky diode frequency tripler. This planar diode produces 26 mW at...

An algorithm has been devised to reduce ground clutter in the data products of the CloudSat Cloud Profiling Radar (CPR), which is a nadir-looking radar instrument, in orbit around the Earth, that measures power backscattered by clouds as a function of distance from the instrument. Ground...

A quasi-optical transmission line (QOTL) has been developed as a low-loss transmission line for a spaceborne cloud-observing radar instrument that operates at a nominal frequency of 94 GHz. This QOTL could also readily be redesigned for use in terrestrial millimeter- wave radar systems and...

A system of software partly automates planning of a flight of the Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) — a polarimetric synthetic-aperture radar system aboard an unpiloted or minimally piloted airplane. The software constructs a flight plan that specifies not only the intended flight path...

A wide-band penetrating radar system for measuring the thickness of sea ice is under development. The need for this or a similar system arises as follows: Spatial and temporal variations in the thickness of sea ice are important indicators of heat fluxes between the ocean and atmosphere and, hence,...

An optoelectronic metrology system is used for determining the attitude and flexing of a large spaceborne radar antenna or similar structure. The measurements are needed for accurate pointing of the antenna and correction and control of the phase of the radar signal wavefront. The system...

A combined frequency- time (CFT) spectral moment estimation technique has been devised for calculating rainfall velocity from measurement data acquired by a nadir-looking spaceborne Doppler weather radar system. Prior spectral moment estimation techniques used for this purpose are based...

A paper describes the Microwave Temperature Profiler (MTP) for making measurements of the planetary boundary layer thermal structure — data necessary for air quality forecasting as the Mixing Layer (ML) height determines the volume in which daytime pollution is primarily concentrated....

A report proposes the development of a system for launching payloads into orbit at about one-fifth the cost per unit payload weight of current systems. The system would be based on the formerly secret PILOT micro-satellite-launching system developed in response to the Soviet launch of Sputnik-1....

In an upgrade of the Range Data Acquisition Computer (RADAC) software, a modular software object library was developed to implement required functionality for filtering of flight-vehicle- tracking data and management of tracking-data sources. (The RADAC software is used to process flight-vehicle...