Views of the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on Agenda Items at Issue at the World Radiocommunication Conference 2027 (2025)
Chapter: Appendix C: Acronyms and Abbreviations
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Suggested Citation:
"Appendix C: Acronyms and Abbreviations." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Views of the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on Agenda Items at Issue at the World Radiocommunication Conference 2027. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
doi: 10.17226/28596.
C
Acronyms and Abbreviations
| A-ESIM | Aeronautical Earth Station in Motion |
| AGB | asymptotic giant branch |
| AGN | active galactic nuclei |
| ALMA | Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array |
| AMSR2 | Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 |
| AMSR3 | Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 3 |
| AMSR-E | Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS |
| AMSU-A | Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit - A |
| ATMS | Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (JPSS) |
| AWS | Arctic Weather Satellite |
| AWS PFM | Arctic Weather Satellite Proto-Flight Model |
| CEPT | European Post and Telecommunications Conference |
| CHIME | Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment |
| CIMR | Copernicus Imaging Microwave Radiometer (ESA) |
| CITEL | Inter-American Telecommunications Commission |
| CMA | China Meteorological Administration |
| CMB | cosmic microwave background |
| DMSP | Defense Meteorological Satellite Program |
Suggested Citation:
"Appendix C: Acronyms and Abbreviations." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Views of the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on Agenda Items at Issue at the World Radiocommunication Conference 2027. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
doi: 10.17226/28596.
| DoD | Department of Defense |
| DSA-2000 | Caltech Deep Synoptic Array |
| ECMWF | European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting |
| EESS | Earth exploration-satellite service |
| EOP | Earth Orientation Parameters |
| EPA | Environmental Protection Agency |
| epfd | equivalent power flux-density1 |
| ERA-5 | European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasting Reanalysis, version 5 |
| ESA | European Space Agency |
| ESIM | Earth station in motion |
| ETI | extra-terrestrial intelligence |
| EUMETSAT | European Meteorological Satellite agency |
| EVN | European VLBI Network |
| FAST | Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope |
| FEMA | Federal Emergency Management Agency |
| FFT | fast Fourier transform |
| FSS | fixed-satellite service |
| FY | FengYun |
| GBT | Green Bank Telescope |
| GCOM-W | Global Change Observation Mission—Water |
| GMI | GPM Microwave Imager |
| GNSS | Global Navigation Satellite System |
___________________
1Equivalent power flux-density (epfd) is defined in Radio Regulation (RR) 22.5C.1, in the context of protecting geostationary satellite systems from emissions of non-geostationary satellite systems, as “the sum of the power flux-densities produced at a geostationary-satellite system receive station on Earth’s surface or in the geostationary orbit, as appropriate, by all the transmit stations within a non-geostationary-satellite system, taking into account the off-axis discrimination of a reference receiving antenna assumed to be pointing in its nominal direction.” The reader is referred to the RR for the accompanying mathematical definition. The utility of the epfd concept is that it reduces the emissions of a complex set of transmitters to that of a single equivalent source, which simplifies the definition of interference thresholds. In the context of protecting radio astronomy observations from non-geostationary satellite systems, a similar definition of epfd is used, but involving a spatiotemporal average of satellite configurations that accounts for the long integration times used in these observations. The methodology is described in ITU-R S.1856-1 and produces epfd values that may be compared with the pfd interference thresholds defined in ITU-R RA.769-2.
Suggested Citation:
"Appendix C: Acronyms and Abbreviations." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Views of the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on Agenda Items at Issue at the World Radiocommunication Conference 2027. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
doi: 10.17226/28596.
| GOSAT-GW | Greenhouse Gas Observing Satellite—Gases and Water Cycle |
| GPM | Global Precipitation Measurement (NASA) |
| GPS | Global Positioning System |
| GSFC | Goddard Space Flight Center |
| GSO | geostationary orbit |
| HF | high frequency [3–30 MHz] |
| HY | Hai Yang |
| ICI | Ice Cloud Imager |
| IEEE | Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers |
| IFOV | instantaneous field of view |
| IMT | International Mobile Telecommunications |
| IPS | interplanetary radio scintillations |
| ISRO | Indian Space Research Organization |
| ISS | International Space Station |
| ITU | International Telecommunication Union |
| ITU-R | International Telecommunication Union Radiocommunication Sector |
| JASON | Joint Altimetry Satellite Oceanography Network |
| JAXA | Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency |
| JPSS | Joint Polar Satellite System |
| LEO | low Earth orbit |
| LOFAR | Low Frequency Array |
| MASER | microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation |
| MATHS | Millimetre wave Atmospheric Temperature and Humidity Sounder |
| MERLIN | Multi-Element Radio Linked Interferometer Network |
| MERRA-2 | Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications, version 2 |
| M-ESIM | Maritime Earth Station in Motion |
| Metop-SG | Meteorological Operational Satellite – Second Generation |
| MSS | mobile-satellite service |
| MSU | Microwave Sounding Unit |
| MTVZA-GY | Module for Temperature and Humidity Sounding of the Atmosphere (named in honor of) G.Ya. Guskov (Russian) |
Suggested Citation:
"Appendix C: Acronyms and Abbreviations." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Views of the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on Agenda Items at Issue at the World Radiocommunication Conference 2027. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
doi: 10.17226/28596.
| MWA | Murchison Widefield Array |
| MWI | Microwave Imager |
| MWRI | Microwave Radiation Imager |
| MWS | Micro-Wave Sounder |
| MWTS | Micro-Wave Temperature Sounder |
| NANOgrav | North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves |
| NASA | National Aeronautics and Space Administration |
| NenuFAR | New Extension in Nançay Upgrading LOFAR |
| NEO | near Earth object |
| ngVLA | Next Generation Very Large Array |
| NISAR | NASA ISRO SAR |
| NOAA | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration |
| Non-GSO | non-geostationary orbit |
| NRQZ | National Radio Quiet Zone |
| NSF | National Science Foundation |
| NSOAS | National Satellite Ocean Application Service (China) |
| NWP | numerical weather prediction |
| OOBE | out-of-band emission(s) |
| pfd | power flux-density |
| RA | radio astronomy |
| RAS | radio astronomy service |
| RFI | radio frequency interference |
| RLS | Radiolocation Service |
| RNSS | Radionavigation-Satellite Service |
| RosHydroMet | Russian Federal Service for Hydrometorology and Environmental Monitoring |
| RQZ | radio quiet zone |
| RR | radio regulation |
| SAR | synthetic aperture radar |
| SETI | search for extra-terrestrial intelligence |
| SKA | Square Kilometre Array |
| SMAP | Soil Moisture Active Passive |
| SMOS | Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity |
| SNPP | Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership |
| spfd | spectral power flux-density |
Suggested Citation:
"Appendix C: Acronyms and Abbreviations." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Views of the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on Agenda Items at Issue at the World Radiocommunication Conference 2027. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
doi: 10.17226/28596.
| SRS | Space Research Service |
| SSMIS | Special Sensor Microwave-Imager/Sounder |
| SST | sea-surface temperature |
| SWE | snow water equivalent |
| SZM | Shielded Zone of the Moon |
| TIROS-N | Television and Infra-Red Observation Satellite |
| USAID | U.S. Agency for International Development |
| USDA | U.S. Department of Agriculture |
| USGS | U.S. Geological Survey |
| UWBR | Ultra-Wide Band Receiver |
| VHF | very high frequency [30-300 MHz] |
| VLA | Very Large Array |
| VLBA | Very Long Baseline Array |
| VLBI | Very Long Baseline Interferometry |
| WMO | World Meteorological Organization |
| WPT | wireless power transmission |
| WRC | World Radiocommunication Conference |
| WSF | Weather Satellite Follow-on |
Suggested Citation:
"Appendix C: Acronyms and Abbreviations." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Views of the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on Agenda Items at Issue at the World Radiocommunication Conference 2027. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
doi: 10.17226/28596.
Suggested Citation:
"Appendix C: Acronyms and Abbreviations." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Views of the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on Agenda Items at Issue at the World Radiocommunication Conference 2027. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
doi: 10.17226/28596.
Suggested Citation:
"Appendix C: Acronyms and Abbreviations." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Views of the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on Agenda Items at Issue at the World Radiocommunication Conference 2027. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
doi: 10.17226/28596.
Suggested Citation:
"Appendix C: Acronyms and Abbreviations." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Views of the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on Agenda Items at Issue at the World Radiocommunication Conference 2027. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
doi: 10.17226/28596.
Suggested Citation:
"Appendix C: Acronyms and Abbreviations." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Views of the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on Agenda Items at Issue at the World Radiocommunication Conference 2027. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
doi: 10.17226/28596.
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