In Spring 2023 we went to ESA ESRIN in Frescati, near Rome, to present the results of almost 5 year work in the FRM4Radar project. On behave of ESA in FRM4Radar we investigated the best practices to validate the Cloud Profiling Radar (CPA) on board of ESAs future satellite mission EarthCARE. Together with our international partners from Romania (INOE), Sweden (SMHI) and Finland (FMI) we installed new radars in Europa. Within the project we develop methods for data processing, radar quality control and cloud radar operation to best generate data sets for the validation of EarthCAREs CPR instrument.

ESA as the Euopean Space Agency is responsible to launch also research satellites, as for example EarthCARE or AEOLOS Foto 5. From time to time, we as scientists are involved in the designing process of satellite missions, the proposal of instrumentation, and the data processing and products generated. EarthCARE is still not launched and so the project was a nice opportunity to get involved into a ESA mission in the prelaunch phase.