NASA And Jaxa Sign Agreement For Future Earth Science Cooperation

July 30, 2009

Sonja Alexander
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1761


RELEASE: 09-177

NASA AND JAXA SIGN AGREEMENT FOR FUTURE EARTH SCIENCE COOPERATION

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and Japan
Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) President Keiji Tachikawa signed
an agreement defining the terms of cooperation between the agencies
on the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission. The ceremony
took place Thursday at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.

Building on the success of the NASA-JAXA Tropical Rainfall Measuring
Mission (TRMM), GPM will begin the measurement of global
precipitation, a key climate factor. It is an international
collaboration that includes NASA and JAXA, with anticipated
contributions of data from other international partners.

GPM is also the cornerstone of the multinational Committee on Earth
Observation Satellites Precipitation Constellation that addresses one
of the key observations of the Global Earth Observation System of
Systems. The heart of the GPM mission is a space-borne core
observatory which serves as a reference standard to unify
measurements from a constellation of multinational research and
operational satellites carrying microwave sensors.

GPM will provide uniformly calibrated precipitation measurements
globally every 2 to 4 hours for scientific research and societal
applications. For the first time, the GPM core observatory sensor
measurements will make detailed observations of precipitation
particle size distribution, which is key to improving the accuracy of
precipitation estimates by microwave radiometers and radars.

The GPM core observatory will carry a Dual-frequency Precipitation
Radar (DPR), which operates at Ku and Ka band frequencies, and a
multi-channel GPM Microwave Imager (GMI) operating from 10-183 GHz.
The DPR will have greater measurement sensitivity to light rain and
snowfall compared to the TRMM radar. The GMI uses a set of
frequencies that have been optimized to retrieve heavy, moderate, and
light precipitation estimates.

Through the agreement, NASA is responsible for the GPM core
observatory spacecraft bus, the GMI carried by it, and a second GMI
to be flown on a partner-provided Low-Inclination Observatory. JAXA
will supply the DPR for the core observatory, an H-IIA rocket for the
core observatory's launch in July 2013 and data from a
conical-scanning microwave imager on the upcoming Global Change
Observation Mission satellite.

For more information about GPM, visit:

http://nasascience.gov/missions/gpm

For more information about TRMM, visit:

http://nasascience.nasa.gov/missions/trmm

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