INvestigation of Convective UpdraftS (INCUS) Principal Investigator, Science Team and Science Data Processing Center Contract Award

The purpose of this announcement is to report a contract between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Langley Research Center (LaRC) and Colorado State University (CSU) for execution of the INvestigation of Convective UpdraftS (INCUS) Principal Investigator, Science Team and Science Data Processing Center effort. CSU was competitively selected to execute the INCUS PI effort for the NASA Life Cycle Formulation and Implementation Phases A through F. CSU's successful INCUS proposal was selected under the NASA Announcement of Opportunity (AO) NNH21ZDA002O for the Earth Venture Mission-3 (EVM-3) in support of the Earth System Science Pathfinder Program Offices' (ESSPPO). This AO was released on November 18, 2020, with a response date of March 25, 2021. The EVM-3 AO solicited proposals for Principal Investigator (PI) led missions to develop and demonstrate innovative, cost-effective, and capable spaceborne observing systems to address the proposed science objectives. CSU's proposal was selected by the Associate Administrator for the NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD) in the EVM-3

The purpose of the INCUS Mission is to develop and deploy three satellite platforms that will orbit in tight formation to observe convective storms on critical time scales that have not been observed to date. Each platform will contain a multi-beam radar sensitive to clouds and rain. One platform will also contain a scanning microwave radiometer to put the radar signals into a larger perspective. The mission objective is to quantify the upward motion of mass in convective storms, a key quantity that is both difficult to constrain with existing observations and critical for weather and climate models. This contract is for the PI effort by CSU to lead and support the INCUS Mission, to collect, analyze, and distribute the science and research, and for the Science Data Processing Center (SDPC). This contract does not include the instrument development or Access to Space (ATS) requirements that were also selected as part of the overall INCUS Mission.