The "Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats" (TROPICS) mission has a goal of providing nearly all-weather observations of three-dimensional temperature and humidity, as well as cloud ice and precipitation horizontal structure, at high temporal resolution to conduct high-value science investigations of tropical cyclones. The mission comprises a constellation of five identical Space Vehicles (SVs) conforming to the 3U form factor and hosting a passive microwave spectrometer payload.

Each SV hosts an identical high-performance spectrometer named the TROPICS Millimeter-wave Sounder (TMS) that will provide temperature profiles using seven channels near the 118.75-GHz oxygen absorption line, water vapor profiles using three channels near the 183-GHz water vapor absorption line, imagery in a single channel near 90 GHz for precipitation measurements (when combined with higher resolution water vapor channels), and a single channel near 205 GHz that is more sensitive to cloud-sized ice particles.

Each TROPICS netCDF file contains a granule of data with 81 spots and approximately 2880 scans, where a granule is defined as an orbit's worth of data. This provisional TROPICS03 data release starts in the middle of June 2023 and TROPICS06 starts at the beginning of June 2023. Both data sets are updated nightly. There are some blackout periods where data is unavailable while the TROPICS team addresses a calibration issue that occurs during the warmest instrument temperatures. The warmest temperatures happen at extreme CubeSat solar beta angles.  See README for this and other calibration observations and the Data Product Users Guide for orbit details.