Daily images of rainfall and sea surface temperature observed by TRMM, and satellite orbit information can be found at "Monitoring" page. Information of events such as heavy rainfall and El Nino is archived at "Topics" page.
Climatological rain distributions observed by TRMM/PR during Dec. 1997-Oct. 2014
The TRMM satellite was launched by H-II launch vehicle No.6 from the Tanegashima Space Center on 28 November 1997 (JST).
The TRMM satellite was raised its altitude from 350 km to 402.5 km in order to extend its lifetime in August 2001.
Ever since then, it continues observations on the orbit more than 17 years, which is far beyond its design life of 3-year and 2-month.
On 5 October 2014, satellite altitude has reached to 392.5 km, which is lower limits of PRfs observable altitude, and JAXA completed PRfs extended operation on 7 October.
The Precipitation Radar (PR) onboard TRMM is the first spaceborne rain in the world, and was developed by Japan.
Major objectives of PR are (1) to provide 3-dimensional rain structure, (2)to achieve quantitative rain measurement over land as well as over ocean, and (3) to improve the accuracy of TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI) measurement by providing the rain structure information.
This page summarizes figures related to climatological rain distributions observed by TRMM/PR during Dec. 1997 -Oct. 2014.