Earth.
Aquarius Update: Episode 1
Jet Propulsion Laboratory https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/ May 5, 2011
Aquarius project manager Amit Sen of JPL presents the first in a series of updates leading up to launch of a mission to measure ocean salinity.
Transcript
Hi, I'm Amit Sen. I'm the Aquarius project manager here at JPL and I'll be giving you periodic updates as this mission gets closer and closer to launch in June of this year.
Aquarius is NASA's first sea surface salinity mission. In simpler terms, Aquarius measures how salty the ocean is from space. If you take a pinch of salt and put it into a gallon of water; that is the sensitivity we can measure from 408 miles above the Earth.
The birth of Aquarius started here in the U.S. The Aquarius instrument was built by NASA at JPL.
Once the instrument was completed, it was taken to Argentina where it was put together with the spacecraft provided by Argentina. We then transported the instrument and the spacecraft to Brazil to do environmental testing. The environmental testing assures us that it will work in space appropriately.
Then last month, it was brought back to Vandenberg, where it's going to be launched.
Coming up next, we will show you how the solar panels are attached to the spacecraft.
These solar panels take sunlight, converts it into electricity, and charges the battery when we’re going to be in space. I'm Amit Sen with this update, we head down to the road to launch.
Aquarius is NASA's first sea surface salinity mission. In simpler terms, Aquarius measures how salty the ocean is from space. If you take a pinch of salt and put it into a gallon of water; that is the sensitivity we can measure from 408 miles above the Earth.
The birth of Aquarius started here in the U.S. The Aquarius instrument was built by NASA at JPL.
Once the instrument was completed, it was taken to Argentina where it was put together with the spacecraft provided by Argentina. We then transported the instrument and the spacecraft to Brazil to do environmental testing. The environmental testing assures us that it will work in space appropriately.
Then last month, it was brought back to Vandenberg, where it's going to be launched.
Coming up next, we will show you how the solar panels are attached to the spacecraft.
These solar panels take sunlight, converts it into electricity, and charges the battery when we’re going to be in space. I'm Amit Sen with this update, we head down to the road to launch.