NPOESS Aircraft Sounder Testbed-Microwave (NAST-M): instrument description and initial flight results

The National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) Aircraft Sounding Testbed, or NAST, has been developed and deployed on the NASA ER-2 high-altitude aircraft. The testbed consists of two colocated scanning instruments: a Fourier-transform interferometer spectrometer (NAST-I) with spectral coverage of 3.7-15.5 μm, and a passive microwave spectrometer (NAST-M) with channels near oxygen absorption lines at 50-57 GHz and 118.75 GHz. The testbed provides the first coregistered imagery from high-resolution microwave and infrared sounders, and will provide new data which will help validate meteorological satellite environmental data record (EDR) feasibility, help define future satellite instrument specifications, and demonstrate operational issues in ground validation, data calibration and retrievals of meteorological parameters