Veery: Flat-panel Scatterometer for Hourly Ocean Surface Vector Winds

Scatterometers are key to filling many of important SBEM capability gaps. These gaps put the warfighter in danger and threaten mission success, especially under extreme weather conditions. Of particular note is the lack of all-weather ocean surface vector wind (OSVW) observations, which currently have a revisit delay greater than 24 hours. Current scatterometer technologies are far too expensive for the multi-unit production required to fill these gaps. Passive solutions, such as Weather Systems Follow-on: Microwave (WSF-M), are largely limited to clear-sky conditions. For this project, we propose to "Develop Veery, a flat-panel C-band scatterometer capable of meeting all JROC specifications for OSVW at 1/100th the cost of existing alternatives, raising its TRL from 3 to 6 in two years." In addition to OSVW, Veery can provide valuable soil moisture, sea ice coverage, and tropical cyclone intensity information. Veery has the best potential to meet JROC requirements and warfighter needs for all-weather performance. Veery is a rotating fan-beam scatterometer designed to fly on a new flat-panel satellite platform (flatsat). This flat form factor increases surface area for power and cooling, flies at low orbits aerodynamically, and replaces thrusters with differential drag. Multiple Veeries can be stacked into a single launch rideshare booking. Veery is orders of magnitude lower in cost, enabling affordable constellation deployment and maintenance. We propose to advance the readiness of Veery’s key subsystems and integrate them into an instrument prototype. This includes the following technical objectives: Flatsat-frontend, Radar Backend, Attitude Determination and Control System (ADCS) Software, and Scatterometer v1.0. The flatsat-frontend milestone involves scaling up Care Weather's radar frontend technologies. The radar backend milestone involves refining the noise performance of Care Weather’s radar backend and developing improved processing to support high-uptime measurement. The ADCS software milestone is required to support Veery’s unique body-spun scanning approach. The scatterometer v1.0 milestone scales and combines these subsystems into an instrument prototype. Each technical objective concludes with a test of prototype hardware, resulting in an increase of the corresponding Technology Readiness Level (TRL). These technical objectives support the development of project milestone technical reports, including Concept of Operations (CONOPS) documents, detailed technical designs, Initial Capabilities Document (ICD), environmental test reports, and data specifications. This project bridges the research to operations gap by retiring the largest technical risks remaining in the Veery concept. This lays the foundation for follow-on work to develop and launch the Veery flight unit, making rapid-refresh scatterometer SBEM data available to ensure warfighter success and safety.