## 7 Conclusions  
Assuming that occultations from two GNSS telemetries are tracked, a 50% data processing yield with added 50% margin, the convective transition relationships can be distinguished by three tropospheric temperatures separated by 1 K, with a six-month on-orbit duration from a constellation of at least three satellites. The satellites orbit in a single plane at a 475-km altitude, 45-degree inclination orbit with a 2-min spacecraft separation. In actual satellite operations, the actual data collection and orbit duration will depend upon unique design factors such as power limitations, orbit maintenance, and PRO receiver characteristics. Near-coincident passive MW coverage from the current operational passive MW satellite constellation was examined as a means to add horizontal context to the interpretation of the ray-path observations from each PRO. Further examination of the coincident events showed that ~26% are associated with near time-coincident passive MW coverage from six passive MW imagers or sounders onboard current operationally sustained platforms. The utility of the passive MW data was assessed solely by swath coverage and did not extend to the choice of the associated MW channels or sampling of the precipitation diurnal cycle, which are beyond the scope of this study. If a PRO constellation was flown in loose formation with an operationally sustained wide-swath (>2000 km) passive radiometer (such as the JPSS polar-orbiting platforms), it would yield a large fraction of near-coincident RO and passive MW observations. Such a distributed observing strategy would capitalize upon the advantages of small satellite observations (unique observational capability, limited sampling, short expected lifecycle) with the reliability of sustained, reliable operational platforms (established observations, dense sampling, long lifetime), to utilize near-coincident observations as the respective satellite orbit paths intersect in close time proximity [44]. Conceptualization, F.J.T., R.P. and J.D.N. ; methodology, F.J.T., R.P. and J.D.N. ; software, F.J.T., R.P. and D.D.M. ; validation, R.P., F.J.T. and D.D.M. ; formal analysis, F.J.T., R.P., J.D.N. and T.E. ; investigation, F.J.T., R.P. and J.D.N. ; resources, F.J.T., R.P. and J.D.N. ; data curation, F.J.T., R.P., J.D.N. and T.E. ; writing--original draft preparation, F.J.T. and J.D.N. ; writing--review and editing, F.J.T., R.P. and J.D.N. ; visualization, F.J.T., R.P., J.D.N. and T.E. ; supervision, F.J.T. and J.D.N. ; project administration, F.J.T., R.P. and J.D.N. ; funding acquisition, F.J.T., R.P. and J.D.N. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript. The work conducted at ICE-CSIC/IEEC was supported by the Spanish grant ESP2015-70014-C2-2-R. The research by RP was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities grant number RTI2018-099008-B-C22/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/FEDER, EU. RP has received funding from the postdoctoral fellowships programme Beatriu de Pinos, funded by the Secretary of Universities and Research (Government of Catalonia) and by the Horizon 2020 programme of research and innovation of the European Union under the [PERSON] grant agreement No 801370. F.J.T. acknowledges support from NASA US Participating Investigator (USPI) program element 14-ESUSP114-0014. J.D.N. and T.E. are supported in part by the National Science Foundation grant AGS-1936810. IMERG precipitation data and GPM partner passive MW data are publicly available from NASA's Precipitation Processing System Science Team Online Request Module (STORM) at [[https://storm.pps.eosdis.nasa.gov/storm](https://storm.pps.eosdis.nasa.gov/storm)]([https://storm.pps.eosdis.nasa.gov/storm](https://storm.pps.eosdis.nasa.gov/storm)) (accessed on 28 January 2022).