HSB

The Humidity Sounder for Brazil (HSB), a 4-channel microwave sounder provided by Brazil aimed at obtaining humidity profiles throughout the atmosphere. The HSB is the instrument in the AIRS/AMSU-A/HSB triplet that allows humidity measurements even under conditions of heavy cloudiness and haze. The HSB provided high quality data until February 2003.

Instrument Characteristics

  • Multi-channel passive radiometer for humidity profiling, consisting of four channels: 1 at 150 GHz, 3 at 183 GHz .
  • Provides atmospheric water vapor profile measurements.
  • Responsible Agency: Brazilian National Institute for Space Studies.
 
Instrument Facts
Responsible Center: Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Heritage: Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-B (AMSU-B)
Swath: 1650 km
Spatial Resolution: 13.5 km at horizontal at nadir
Mass: 66 kg
Power: 85 W (average), 154 W (peak)
Duty Cycle: 100%
Data Rate: 4.2 kbps
Thermal Control By: Radiator
Thermal Operating Range: 0-40° C
Field of View (FOV): ±49.5° cross track from nadir (+90° to -49.5° for calibration)
Instrument Instantaneous FOV: 1.1°
Pointing Requirements (platform+instrument, 3σ)
Control: 3600 arcsec
Knowledge: 360 arcsec
Stability: 74 arcsec/sec
Jitter: TBD
Physical Size: 73 x 69 x 47 cm