11/28/07 12:00 am - CALIPSO Pitch Maneuver - impact on CloudSat

CALIPSO is planning to execute a pitch maneuver today to point 3 degrees in the forward direction. Tomorrow, CloudSat will move to a new formation position that is approximately 5 seconds forward from it's current position in order to continue to sample the same atmospheric volume as CALIPSO. This will put Cloudsat between 15 and 20 seconds in front of CALIPSO. Due to the modified view angle of CALIPSO, the combined product(2B-GEOPROF-Lidar) will have to be re-validated prior to release to the science community. The updated product is expected to be released to the CloudSat Science Team by March/April 2008 and to the general science community by May 2008. Check back for updates on those release dates.