FSSCat Mission description and first scientific results of the FMPL-2 onboard 3CAT-5/A

• Published in: 2021 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium IGARSS
• Main Authors: Camps Carmona, Adriano José, Muñoz Martin, Joan Francesc, Ruiz De Azúa Ortega, Juan Adrián, Fernandez Capon, Lara Pilar, Pérez Portero, Adrián, Llaveria Godoy, David, Herbert, Christoph Josef, Pablos Hernández, Miriam, Golkar, Alessandro, Gutiérrez Peña, Antonio
• Other Authors: Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. Departament de Teoria del Senyal i Comunicacions, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. Doctorat en Teoria del Senyal i Comunicacions, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. RSLAB - Grup de Recerca en Teledetecció, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. WNG - Grup de xarxes sense fils
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 2021
• Subjects: Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Enginyeria de la telecomunicació::Radiocomunicació i exploració electromagnètica::Satèl·lits i ràdioenllaços; Artificial satellites in earth sciences; Remote sensing; Sea ice; Microwave radiometry; GNSS-R; Sea ice concentration; Sea ice thickness; Soil moisture; Artificial neural networks; Satèl·lits artificials en ciències de la terra; Teledetecció; Dominguez; Fernandez; Perez
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2117/386798; https://doi.org/10.1109/IGARSS47720.2021.9554589

FSSCat, the “Federated Satellite Systems/ 3 Cat-5” mission was the winner of the 2017 ESA S^3 (Sentinel Small Satellite) Challenge and overall winner of the Copernicus Masters competition. FSSCat consists of two 6 unit cubesats carrying on board UPC's Flexible Microwave Payload - 2 (FMPL-2), an L-band microwave radiometer and GNSS-Reflectometer implemented in a software defined radio, and Cosine's HyperScout-2 visible and near infrared + thermal infrared hyperspectral imager, enhanced with PhiSat-1, a on board Artificial intelligence experiment for cloud detection. Both spacecrafts include optical and UHF inter-satellite links technology demonstrators, provided by Golbriak Space and UPC, respectively. This paper describes the mission, and the main scientific results of the FMPL-2 obtained during the first three months of the mission, notably the sea ice concentration and thickness, and the downscaled soil moisture products over the Northern hemisphere. This work was supported by 2017 ESA S 3 challenge and Copernicus Masters overall winner award (“FSSCat” project) and ESA project “FSSCat Validation Experiment in MOSAIC”, by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, "Sensing with Pioneering Opportunistic Techniques" SPOT, grant RTI2018-099008- BC21/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, and by the Unidad de Excelencia Maria de Maeztu MDM-2016-0600. Peer Reviewed Article signat per 25 autors/es: A. Camps 1,2; J.F. Munoz‐Martin 1; J.A. Ruiz‐de‐Azua 1,2; L. Fernandez 1; A. Perez-Portero 1; D. Llavería 1; C. Herbert 1; M. Pablos 3; A. Golkar 4,1; A. Gutiérrrez 5; C. António 5; J. Bandeiras 5; J. Andrade 5; D. Cordeiro 5; S. Briatore 4,6; N. Garzaniti 4,6; F. Nichele 7; R. Mozzillo 7; A. Piumatti 7; M. Cardi 7; M. Esposito 8; B. Carnicero Dominguez 9; M. Pastena 9; G. Filippazzo 10; A. Reagan 10 // 1. Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain; 2. Institut d’Estudis Espacials de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain; 3. Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM-CSIC) & Barcelona Expert Center (BEC) on ...