NASA CPEX Airborne Microwave Sounder Data

NASA's Microwave Atmospheric Sounder on Cubesat (MASC) CPEX dataset contains atmospheric products from an instrument onboard the DC-8 aircraft. Data was gathered during sixteen missions from May 27 to June 21, 2017, as part of the Convective Processes Experiment field campaign in the North Atlantic-Gulf of America-Caribbean Sea region. The dataset is stored in HDF-5 format.

Use Cases

• Analyzing convective storm life cycles using airborne microwave sounding data.
• Studying atmospheric profiles over oceanic regions during early summer.
• Validating satellite-based microwave sounder algorithms with high-resolution aircraft measurements.
• Investigating the relationship between atmospheric conditions and storm growth in the Atlantic-Caribbean region.

Strengths

• Data originates from a dedicated NASA field campaign with sixteen coordinated DC-8 flights.
• Provides a focused temporal snapshot of convective processes during the 2017 early summer period.
• Cross-platform presence on Data.gov and NASA EarthData indicates recognized institutional importance.

Limitations

• Specific column names, row counts, and dataset size are not provided by any source.
• Sources conflict on the last updated date: Data.gov lists 2026-03-13, while NASA EarthData lists 2017-06 21.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

Collected by the MASC instrument onboard the DC-8 aircraft during the CPEX field campaign.

Time Range

2017.05.27 - 2017.06.21

Freshness

2026-03-13 00:46:56.531734

Geography

North Atlantic-Gulf of America-Caribbean Sea region