EARTH
OBSERVATION SATELLITE MISSIONS
AQUA SPACECRAFT TO STUDY EARTH'S WATER CYCLE-- part of Earth
Observing System satellites dedicated to studying Earth
and expanding our knowledge
of global
climate change. Equipped with six state-of-the-art instruments,
Aqua will collect data on global precipitation, evaporation,
the cycling
of water,
changes in ocean
circulation and study how clouds and surface water processes affect
our climate. This information will help scientists better understand
how
global ecosystems
are changing, and how they respond to and affect global environmental
change. See: http://aqua.nasa.gov.
A-Train
Fact Sheet. NASA Earth Science Enterprise
Series, Fact Sheet [268KB
PDF] March 2003. Over the next five years,
NASA's ESE plans to launch four satellite
missions that will fly in formation with each
other and with the Aqua satellite, which has
been in orbit since May 2002. Each individual
mission has its own objectives and will improve our understanding
of aspects of the Earth's climate. The real advantage of formation
flying, however is that the data from the various satellites
are synergistic.
CRYSTAL-FACE mission http://cloud1.arc.nasa.gov/crystalface/ --
a measurement campaign designed to investigate
tropical cirrus cloud physical
properties and formation processes. Understanding
the production of upper tropospheric
cirrus clouds is essential for the successful
modeling of the Earth's
climate.
GRACE Brochure: The
Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment.
NASA Earth Science Enterprise Series,
Fact Sheet: FS-2002-1-029-GSFC [292KB
PDF] December 2003.
To learn more about the mysteries of gravity, twin satellites
named
GRACE-short for the Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment-were
launched to make detailed measurements of Earth's gravity field.
This experiment could lead to discoveries about gravity and Earth's
natural systems, which could have far-reaching benefits to society
and the world's population.
March 2001 Meteor 3M/SAGE III LAUNCH. The SAGE III mission
on the Russian Meteor 3M-1 spacecraft seeks to enhance
our understanding
of natural and human-derived
atmospheric processes by providing high latitude long-term
measurements of the vertical structure of aerosols, ozone,
water vapor, and
other important trace
gases in the upper troposphere and stratosphere. For
more information, see http://www-sage3.larc.nasa.gov/.
March 2001 JASON-1 LAUNCH. Jason is a joint U.S.-France
(Centre National d' Etudes Spatiales) oceanography
mission designed
to monitor global ocean circulation,
discover the tie between the oceans and atmosphere,
improve global climate predictions, and monitor events
such as
El Nio and La
Nia and ocean eddies. For more information,
see: http://topex-www.jpl.nasa.gov/jason1/.
LANDSAT http://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/ also, http://landsat7.usgs.gov,
and the Earth as Art web site at: http://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/earthasart/
National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite
System (NPOESS) Preparatory Project (NPP) Spacecraft.
-- http://jointmission.gsfc.nasa.gov/ --
Provide NASA with continuation of global change
observations after
Earth
Observing
System (EOS) TERRA and Aqua. Measure atmospheric
and sea surface temperatures, humidity
sounding, land and ocean biological productivity,
and cloud and aerosol properties.
Satellites for Solar-Terrestrial observations http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/stp.html
S'COOL (Students' Cloud Observations On-Line)
-- http://asd-www.larc.nasa.gov/SCOOL/
Students make accurate cloud observations for
ground truthing for the CERES satellite (Clouds
and the Earth's Radiant Energy System)--a high
priority scientific satellite instrument which
is orbiting the Earth as part of NASA's Earth
Science Enterprise. CERES helps us to study
the ways in which clouds may affect the Earth's
climate.
SORCE
Fact Sheet. NASA Earth Science Enterprise
Series, Fact Sheet
[164KB PDF] December 2002.
To further understand the influence of the Sun on the Earth system,
NASA launched the SORCE satellite in January 2003. SORCE is a
key component of NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS) program, and
will address long-term climate change, natural variability and enhanced
climate prediction, and atmospheric ozone and UV-B radiation.
This research is critical to studies of the Sun, its affect on our
Earth, and its influence on humankind.
SeaWiFS --
July 31, 2002 --The Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-View Sensor
(SeaWiFS), aboard the OrbView-2 satellite, has given
researchers an unprecedented view of the biological engine
that drives life on Earth. Levels of phytoplankton, single
celled plant organisms that form the base of the oceanic
food chain, can explode in events called bloom. Other
organisms can bloom as well, such as algae.
Studying Earth's Environment from Space, from
Old Dominion University http://www.ccpo.odu.edu/SEES/
TOPEX/Poseidon
mission http://sealevel.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/mission.html
Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) http://toms.gsfc.nasa.gov/
Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite http://trmm.gsfc.nasa.gov/
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