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Active Cavity Irradiance Monitor Satellite
Launch: December
22, 1999
This satellite is designed to monitor the total amount of the Sun's energy reaching Earth. These data will help climatologists improve their predictions of climate change and global warming over the next century.
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Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer
Launch: December 18, 1999
This imaging instrument flying on NASA's Terra satellite is designed to obtain high-resolution global, regional and local views of Earth in 14 color bands.
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Aquarius
Planned Launch: March 2009
This mission will provide the first-ever global maps of salt concentration in the ocean surface needed to understand heat transport and storage in the ocean.
Mission home page
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Atmospheric Infrared Sounder
Launch: May 4, 2002
This instrument is to be flown aboard NASA's Aqua satellite to make highly accurate measurements of air temperature, humidity, clouds and surface temperatures.
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CloudSat
Launch: Apr. 28, 2006
CloudSat will provide a never-before-seen 3-D perspective of Earth's clouds that will answer questions about how they form, evolve and affect our weather, climate and freshwater supply.
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Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment
Launch: March 17, 2002
This joint U.S.-German mission consists of two spacecraft flying in tandem to measure Earth's gravitational field very precisely. This will enable a better understanding of ocean surface currents and ocean heat transport.
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Jason 1
Launch: December 7, 2001
This oceanography mission is a follow-up to Topex/Poseidon and will monitor global ocean circulation, discover the tie between the oceans and atmosphere, improve global climate predictions, and monitor events such as El Niño.
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Microwave Limb Sounder
Launch: July 15, 2004
This instrument, which flies aboard NASA's Aura spacecraft, is designed to improve our understanding of ozone, especially how it is depleted by processes of chlorine chemistry.
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Multi-angle Imaging Spectro-Radiometer
Launch: December 18, 1999
Carried onboard NASA's Terra satellite, this instrument is a sophisticated imaging system that collects images from nine widely spaced angles as it glides above Earth.
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NASA Scatterometer
Launch: August 17, 1996
This ocean-observing satellite carries an instrument called a scatterometer, which operates by sending radar pulses to the ocean surface and measuring the "backscattered" or echoed radar pulses bounced back to the satellite. It could acquire hundreds of times more observations of surface wind velocity each day than can ships and buoys.
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Orbiting Carbon Observatory
Planned Launch: December 2008
This mission will make the first space-based measurements
of atmospheric carbon dioxide with the accuracy and resolution needed to characterize
its sources and sinks. Such information will improve forecasts of future concentrations
of this important greenhouse gas and its impact on climate.
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Ocean Surface Topography Mission/Jason 2
Launch: June 20, 2008
This mission is a follow-on to the Jason-1 mission.
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Quick Scatterometer
Launch: June 19, 1999
This ocean-observing satellite carries an instrument called a scatterometer, which operates by sending radar pulses to the ocean surface and measuring the "backscattered" or echoed radar pulses bounced back to the satellite. This instrument can acquire hundreds of times more observations of surface wind velocity each day than can ships and buoys.
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Seasat
Launch: June 26, 1978
This experimental satellite flight-tested four instruments that used radar to study Earth and its seas. Many later Earth-orbiting instruments developed at JPL owe their legacy to this mission.
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SeaWinds on Adeos 2
Launch: December 13, 2002
This scatterometer instrument, called SeaWinds, was launched on a Japanese satellite but that satellite stopped functioning later that year.
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Shuttle Imaging Radar
Launches: 1981, 1984, 1994, 2000
This series of missions flown on NASA's Space Shuttle over two decades pioneered imaging radar,
a technology that uses radar pulses to capture images of Earth. After two missions in the
1980s, projects in 1994 and 2000 added new radar frequencies and a second antenna to measure
Earth's topography.
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Shuttle Payloads
Launches: Various dates
In addition to the Shuttle Imaging Radar series, a number of JPL payloads have flown over the years in the cargo bay of NASA space shuttles.
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Shuttle Radar Topography Mission
Launch: February 2000
On a 11-day flight aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour in February 2000, SRTM acquired enough data to obtain the most complete near-global mapping of our planet's topography to date.The mission is still processing data and images.
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Solar Mesosphere Explorer
Launch: October 6, 1981
This satellite investigated the processes that create and destroy ozone in Earth's upper atmosphere.
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Topex/Poseidon
Launch: August 10, 1992
A joint effort between NASA and France's National Center for Space Studies, this satellite measured sea level every 10 days. This mission allowed scientists to chart the height of the seas across ocean basins with an accuracy of less than 10 centimeters (4 inches), affording a unique view of ocean phenomena such as El Niño and La Niña.
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Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer
Launch: July 15, 2004
This instrument, which flies aboard NASA's Aura spacecraft, is an infrared sensor designed to study Earth's troposphere -- the lowest region of our atmosphere -- and look at ozone.
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