Basic information about the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite, including overview of satellite and sensors, is available from here.
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There are various difficulties to achive a rader rainfall measurement from space;e.g.,to detect a light rain with a good spatial resolution from a high altitude of several hundreds of kilometers, and to suppress the surface clutter that is much stronger than rain echoes. In addition, data processing algorithms to derive rainfall rate from the measured rain echo power must be developed.
In Japan, Communications Research Laboratory (CRL) of Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications developed an airborne rain radar in late 1970's. CRL has conducted a series of aircraft experiments in cooperation with Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA, and has continued the study of spaceborm radar systems. CRL has made a conceptual design, development of several key components and a Bread Board Model of the Precipitation Rader in cooperation with CRL.