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120-689: QuikSCAT was launched on 19 June 1999 with an initial 3-year mission requirement. QuikSCAT was a "quick recovery" mission replacing the NASA Scatterometer (NSCAT), which failed prematurely in June 1997 after just 9.5 months in operation. QuikSCAT, however, far exceeded these design expectations and continued to operate for over a decade before a bearing failure on its antenna motor ended QuikSCAT's capabilities to determine useful surface wind information on 23 November 2009. The QuikSCAT geophysical data record spans from 19 July 1999 to 21 November 2009. While

240-479: A CCD matrix to take images at nadir at different view angles as the image moved along the orbit track. A rotating filter wheel and polarizers will produce measurements in eight spectral bands at three different polarization directions (0.435, 0.670, and 0.880 microns at 3 polarization directions and 0.49, 0.52, 0.565, 0.765, and 0.95 microns at no polarization). The POLDER produced images in a swath width of 1,440 × 1,920 km (890 × 1,190 mi) at

360-456: A UV polychromator and photomultiplier (PMT). The TOMS was a single Ebert-Fastie spectrometer with a fixed grating and an array of exit slits. The TOMS step-scanned across the orbital track 51° from the nadir in 3° steps with an FOV of approximately 0.052 rad . At each scan position, the Earth radiance was monitored at six wavelengths (0.304, 0.3125, 0.325, 0.3175, 0.3326, and 0.360 microns) to infer

480-628: A decade of reliance on the Russians. In 2019, NASA announced the Artemis program , intending to return to the Moon and establish a permanent human presence. This was paired with the Artemis Accords with partner nations to establish rules of behavior and norms of space commercialization on the Moon. In 2023, NASA established the Moon to Mars Program office. The office is designed to oversee

600-522: A ground resolution of 6 × 7 km (3.7 × 4.3 mi). The RIS experiment is provided by the Environment Agency (EA) of Japan on ADEOS. The RIS is a 50 cm (20 in) diameter passive corner cube laser retroreflector designed to provide data to infer the distribution of ozone and other trace gases in the atmosphere. A ground-based laser beam is reflected by the RIS to

720-647: A month after the Soviet Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space, executing a full orbital spaceflight. NASA's first orbital spaceflight was conducted by John Glenn on February 20, 1962, in the Friendship 7 , making three full orbits before reentering. Glenn had to fly parts of his final two orbits manually due to an autopilot malfunction. The sixth and final Mercury mission was flown by Gordon Cooper in May 1963, performing 22 orbits over 34 hours in

840-583: A permanently manned space station and to do it within a decade. In 1985, NASA proposed the Space Station Freedom , which both the agency and President Reagan intended to be an international program. While this would add legitimacy to the program, there were concerns within NASA that the international component would dilute its authority within the project, having never been willing to work with domestic or international partners as true equals. There

960-650: A possible source of antimatter at the center of the Milky Way and observing that the majority of gamma-ray bursts occur outside of the Milky Way galaxy. The Chandra X-ray Observatory was launched from the Columbia on STS-93 in 1999, observing black holes, quasars , supernova , and dark matter . It provided critical observations on the Sagittarius A* black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy and

1080-461: A rotating dish antenna with two spot beams that sweep in a circular pattern. The antenna consists of a 1-meter diameter rotating dish that produces two spot beams, sweeping in a circular pattern. It radiates 110 W microwave pulses at a pulse repetition frequency (PRF) of 189 Hz. QuikSCAT operates at a frequency of 13.4 GHz, which is in the Ku-band of microwave frequencies. At this frequency,

1200-540: A space station since the agency was created. In 1973, following the end of the Apollo lunar missions, NASA launched its first space station, Skylab , on the final launch of the Saturn   V. Skylab reused a significant amount of Apollo and Saturn hardware, with a repurposed Saturn   V third stage serving as the primary module for the space station. Damage to Skylab during its launch required spacewalks to be performed by

1320-415: A spatial resolution of about 25 km. A higher spatial resolution of 12.5 km is also achieved through special processing, but has significantly more measurement noise. An even higher spatial resolution of 5 km is also produced, but only for limited regions and special cases. The σ 0 observations are calibrated to the wind speed and direction of the wind at a reference height of 10 meters above

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1440-490: A speed of about 7 km per second. Scatterometers such as QuikSCAT emit pulses of low-power microwave radiation and measure the power reflected back to its receiving antenna from the wind-roughened sea surface. Gravity and capillary waves on the sea surface caused by the wind reflect or backscatter power emitted from the scatterometer radar primarily by means of a Bragg resonance condition. The wavelengths of these waves are roughly 1 cm and are usually in equilibrium with

1560-464: A swath 1,400 km (870 mi) wide with a ground resolution of 700 m (2,300 ft). OCTS realtime data was transmitted on 465.0 MHz at 20 kbs to local users (e.g. fishing industry ). The POLDER instrument is provided by the Laboratoire d'Études et de Recherches en Télédétection Spatiale (LERTS)/Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES) of France for ADEOS. The objective of POLDER

1680-647: A wind speed accuracy of 2 meter/sec and direction accuracy of 20° and a spatial resolution of 25 km (16 mi). NSCAT data was processed to science products directly from telemetry by the NSCAT Data Processing and Instrument Operations (DP&IO). The OCTS was one of the core instruments developed by NASDA for ADEOS. The OCTS is a multispectral radiometer designed to obtain measurements of global ocean color , sea surface temperature , distribution of phytoplankton and oceanic primary productivity, sediment , and suspended material. The OCTS scanned

1800-489: Is a whisk broom radiometer developed by NASDA. The Advanced Visible and Near Infrared Radiometer (AVNIR), an optoelectronic scanning radiometer with CCD detectors, was also produced by NASDA. The NASA Scatterometer (NSCAT), developed with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), used fan-beam Doppler signals to measure wind speeds over bodies of water. The Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS)

1920-590: Is hundreds of times more surface wind measurements than are collected routinely from ships and buoys. QuikSCAT provided measurements of the wind speed and direction referenced to 10 meters above the sea surface at a spatial resolution of 25 km. Wind information cannot be retrieved within 15–30 km of coastlines or in the presence of sea ice. Precipitation generally degrades the wind measurement accuracy, although useful wind and rain information can still be obtained in mid-latitude and tropical cyclones for monitoring purposes. In addition to measuring surface winds over

2040-590: The Faith 7 . The Mercury Program was wildly recognized as a resounding success, achieving its objectives to orbit a human in space, develop tracking and control systems, and identify other issues associated with human spaceflight. While much of NASA's attention turned to space, it did not put aside its aeronautics mission. Early aeronautics research attempted to build upon the X-1's supersonic flight to build an aircraft capable of hypersonic flight . The North American X-15

2160-756: The Army Ballistic Missile Agency would launch Explorer 1 , America's first satellite, on February 1, 1958. The Eisenhower Administration decided to split the United States' military and civil spaceflight programs, which were organized together under the Defense Department 's Advanced Research Projects Agency . NASA was established on July 29, 1958, with the signing of the National Aeronautics and Space Act and it began operations on October 1, 1958. As

2280-803: The Bell X-1 in a joint program with the U.S. Air Force . NACA's interest in space grew out of its rocketry program at the Pilotless Aircraft Research Division. The Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik 1 ushered in the Space Age and kicked off the Space Race . Despite NACA's early rocketry program, the responsibility for launching the first American satellite fell to the Naval Research Laboratory 's Project Vanguard , whose operational issues ensured

2400-677: The Big Bang . The James Webb Space Telescope , named after the NASA administrator who lead the Apollo program, is an infrared observatory launched in 2021. The James Webb Space Telescope is a direct successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, intended to observe the formation of the first galaxies. Other space telescopes include the Kepler space telescope , launched in 2009 to identify planets orbiting extrasolar stars that may be Terran and possibly harbor life. The first exoplanet that

2520-698: The Earth Observing System ; advancing heliophysics through the efforts of the Science Mission Directorate 's Heliophysics Research Program; exploring bodies throughout the Solar System with advanced robotic spacecraft such as New Horizons and planetary rovers such as Perseverance ; and researching astrophysics topics, such as the Big Bang , through the James Webb Space Telescope ,

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2640-797: The Environmental Science Services Administration on a series of weather satellites and the agency launched its experimental Applications Technology Satellites into geosynchronous orbit. NASA's first dedicated Earth observation satellite, Landsat , was launched in 1972. This led to NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration jointly developing the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite and discovering Ozone depletion . NASA had been pursuing spaceplane development since

2760-691: The Europa and observed that the moon may hold ice or liquid water. A joint NASA- European Space Agency - Italian Space Agency mission, Cassini–Huygens , was sent to Saturn 's moon Titan , which, along with Mars and Europa, are the only celestial bodies in the Solar System suspected of being capable of harboring life. Cassini discovered three new moons of Saturn and the Huygens probe entered Titan's atmosphere. The mission discovered evidence of liquid hydrocarbon lakes on Titan and subsurface water oceans on

2880-633: The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) , and the China's HaiYang-2A (HY-2A) scatterometer operated by China's National Satellite Ocean Application Service, as well as future NASA scatterometer missions in development. A NASA Senior Review panel in 2011 endorsed the continuation of the QuikSCAT mission with these modified objectives through 2018. QuikSCAT was declared fully decommissioned on October 2, 2018. SeaWinds used

3000-784: The Johnson Space Center as the lead center for the design, development, and manufacturing of the Space Shuttle orbiter , while the Marshall Space Flight Center would lead the development of the launch system. NASA's series of lifting body aircraft, culminating in the joint NASA-U.S. Air Force Martin Marietta X-24 , directly informed the development of the Space Shuttle and future hypersonic flight aircraft. Official development of

3120-664: The Mars Global Surveyor orbiter and Mars Pathfinder , deploying the first Mars rover, Sojourner . During the early 2000s, the 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter reached the planet and in 2004 the Sprit and Opportunity rovers landed on the Red Planet. This was followed in 2005 by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and 2007 Phoenix Mars lander. The 2012 landing of Curiosity discovered that

3240-614: The Orbiting Geophysical Observatory in the 1960s and 1970s to look down at Earth and observe its interactions with the Sun. The Uhuru satellite was the first dedicated x-ray telescope, mapping 85% of the sky and discovering a large number of black holes . Launched in the 1990s and early 2000s, the Great Observatories program are among NASA's most powerful telescopes. The Hubble Space Telescope

3360-658: The STS-1 mission, designed to serve as a flight test for the new spaceplane. NASA intended for the Space Shuttle to replace expendable launch systems like the Air Force's Atlas , Delta , and Titan and the European Space Agency 's Ariane . The Space Shuttle's Spacelab payload, developed by the European Space Agency, increased the scientific capabilities of shuttle missions over anything NASA

3480-635: The STS-60 mission in 1994 and the Discovery rendezvoused, but did not dock with, the Russian Mir in the STS-63 mission. This was followed by Atlantis' STS-71 mission where it accomplished the initial intended mission for the Space Shuttle, docking with a space station and transferring supplies and personnel. The Shuttle- Mir program would continue until 1998, when a series of orbital accidents on

3600-477: The Space Race when the Soviet Union gave up its lunar ambitions. As the first human to step on the surface of the Moon, Neil Armstrong uttered the now famous words: That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. NASA would conduct six total lunar landings as part of the Apollo program, with Apollo   17 concluding the program in 1972. Wernher von Braun had advocated for NASA to develop

3720-620: The Space Shuttle began in 1972, with Rockwell International contracted to design the orbiter and engines, Martin Marietta for the external fuel tank , and Morton Thiokol for the solid rocket boosters . NASA acquired six orbiters: the Enterprise , Columbia , Challenger , Discovery , Atlantis , and Endeavour The Space Shuttle program also allowed NASA to make major changes to its Astronaut Corps . While almost all previous astronauts were Air Force or Naval test pilots,

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3840-620: The United States Congress created the Aviation Section of the U.S. Army Signal Corps in 1914 and established NACA in 1915 to foster aeronautical research and development. Over the next forty years, NACA would conduct aeronautical research in support of the U.S. Air Force , U.S. Army , U.S. Navy , and the civil aviation sector. After the end of World War II , NACA became interested in the possibilities of guided missiles and supersonic aircraft, developing and testing

3960-405: The inner planets . Despite these successes, Congress was unwilling to fund further interplanetary missions and NASA Administrator James Webb suspended all future interplanetary probes to focus resources on the Apollo program. Following the conclusion of the Apollo program, NASA resumed launching interplanetary probes and expanded its space science program. The first planet tagged for exploration

4080-472: The 1960s, blending the administration's dual aeronautics and space missions. NASA viewed a spaceplane as part of a larger program, providing routine and economical logistical support to a space station in Earth orbit that would be used as a hub for lunar and Mars missions. A reusable launch vehicle would then have ended the need for expensive and expendable boosters like the Saturn V . In 1969, NASA designated

4200-728: The 1968–1972 Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station, and the Space Shuttle . Currently, NASA supports the International Space Station (ISS) along with the Commercial Crew Program , and oversees the development of the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System for the lunar Artemis program . NASA's science division is focused on better understanding Earth through

4320-679: The 44 commercial companies that contracted with NASA to deploy their satellites to return to expendable launch vehicles. When the Space Shuttle returned to flight with the STS-26 mission, it had undergone significant modifications to improve its reliability and safety. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation and United States initiated the Shuttle- Mir program . The first Russian cosmonaut flew on

4440-630: The Air Force as the military space lead. Plans for human spaceflight began in the U.S. Armed Forces prior to NASA's creation. The Air Force's Man in Space Soonest project formed in 1956, coupled with the Army's Project Adam, served as the foundation for Project Mercury . NASA established the Space Task Group to manage the program, which would conduct crewed sub-orbital flights with the Army's Redstone rockets and orbital flights with

4560-501: The Air Force's Atlas launch vehicles. While NASA intended for its first astronauts to be civilians, President Eisenhower directed that they be selected from the military. The Mercury 7 astronauts included three Air Force pilots, three Navy aviators, and one Marine Corps pilot. On May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard became the first American to enter space, performing a suborbital spaceflight in the Freedom 7 . This flight occurred less than

4680-410: The Apollo program. Despite attacks on the goal of landing astronauts on the Moon from the former president Dwight Eisenhower and 1964 presidential candidate Barry Goldwater , President Kennedy was able to protect NASA's growing budget, of which 50% went directly to human spaceflight and it was later estimated that, at its height, 5% of Americans worked on some aspect of the Apollo program. Mirroring

4800-685: The Army Ballistic Missile Agency's original Saturn   I . The Apollo spacecraft was designed and built by North American Aviation , while the Apollo Lunar Module was designed and built by Grumman . To develop the spaceflight skills and equipment required for a lunar mission, NASA initiated Project Gemini . Using a modified Air Force Titan   II launch vehicle, the Gemini capsule could hold two astronauts for flights of over two weeks. Gemini pioneered

4920-485: The Department of Defense's program management concept using redundant systems in building the first intercontinental ballistic missiles, NASA requested the Air Force assign Major General Samuel C. Phillips to the space agency where he would serve as the director of the Apollo program. Development of the Saturn   V rocket was led by Wernher von Braun and his team at the Marshall Space Flight Center , derived from

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5040-666: The Earth in the direction perpendicular to the satellite track with a rotating mirror. The OCTS employs a quantum detector and a large radiant cryogenic cooler for the infrared detectors. The rotating mirror was able to tilt 40° forward or backward along the ground track to minimize the effects of Sun glitter from the ocean surface. The OCTS consisted of three infrared channels (8.0-9.0, 10.5-11.5, 11.5-12.5 microns), one middle-IR channel (3.55-3.85 microns), two near-IR channels (0.745-0.785, 0.845-0.885 microns), and six visible channels (0.402-0.422, 0.433-0.453, 0.480-0.50, 0.51-0.53, 0.555-0.575, and 0.655-0.675 microns). The OCTS will provide data in

5160-574: The Keplar space telescope confirmed was Kepler-22b , orbiting within the habitable zone of its star. NASA also launched a number of different satellites to study Earth, such as Television Infrared Observation Satellite (TIROS) in 1960, which was the first weather satellite. NASA and the United States Weather Bureau cooperated on future TIROS and the second generation Nimbus program of weather satellites. It also worked with

5280-558: The Martian interior. The 2021 Perseverance rover carried the first extraplanetary aircraft, a helicopter named Ingenuity . NASA also launched missions to Mercury in 2004, with the MESSENGER probe demonstrating as the first use of a solar sail . NASA also launched probes to the outer Solar System starting in the 1960s. Pioneer 10 was the first probe to the outer planets, flying by Jupiter , while Pioneer 11 provided

5400-483: The Moon and going to Mars. Embracing this approach, NASA's Commercial Crew Program started by contracting cargo delivery to the International Space Station and flew its first operational contracted mission on SpaceX Crew-1 . This marked the first time since the retirement of the Space Shuttle that NASA was able to launch its own astronauts on an American spacecraft from the United States, ending

5520-479: The Moon and returning him safely to Earth by the end of the 1960s and installed James E. Webb as NASA administrator to achieve this goal. On May   25, 1961, President Kennedy openly declared this goal in his "Urgent National Needs" speech to the United States Congress, declaring: I believe this Nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on

5640-427: The Moon and returning him safely to Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. Kennedy gave his " We choose to go to the Moon " speech the next year, on September   12, 1962 at Rice University , where he addressed the nation hoping to reinforce public support for

5760-409: The Russians be included. In 1993, the Clinton Administration announced that the Space Station Freedom would become the International Space Station in an agreement with the Russian Federation. This allowed the Russians to maintain their space program through an infusion of American currency to maintain their status as one of the two premier space programs. While the United States built and launched

5880-507: The Russians to fly to the International Space Station for four days, despite the opposition of NASA to the idea. Advocates of this new commercial approach for NASA included former astronaut Buzz Aldrin , who remarked that it would return NASA to its roots as a research and development agency, with commercial entities actually operating the space systems. Having corporations take over orbital operations would also allow NASA to focus all its efforts on deep space exploration and returning humans to

6000-422: The Solar System. Mars has long been a planet of intense fascination for NASA, being suspected of potentially having harbored life. Mariner 5 was the first NASA spacecraft to flyby Mars, followed by Mariner 6 and Mariner 7 . Mariner 9 was the first orbital mission to Mars. Launched in 1975, Viking program consisted of two landings on Mars in 1976. Follow-on missions would not be launched until 1996, with

6120-404: The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003, NASA was forced to rely on Russian Soyuz launches for its astronauts and the 2011 retirement of the Space Shuttle accelerated the station's completion. In the 1980s, right after the first flight of the Space Shuttle, NASA started a joint program with the Department of Defense to develop the Rockwell X-30 National Aerospace Plane. NASA realized that

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6240-418: The Space Shuttle allowed NASA to begin recruiting more non-military scientific and technical experts. A prime example is Sally Ride , who became the first American woman to fly in space on STS-7 . This new astronaut selection process also allowed NASA to accept exchange astronauts from U.S. allies and partners for the first time. The first Space Shuttle flight occurred in 1981, when the Columbia launched on

6360-443: The Space Shuttle and expand space exploration beyond low Earth orbit. Constellation was intended to use a significant amount of former Space Shuttle equipment and return astronauts to the Moon. This program was canceled by the Obama Administration . Former astronauts Neil Armstrong , Gene Cernan , and Jim Lovell sent a letter to President Barack Obama to warn him that if the United States did not get new human spaceflight ability,

6480-478: The Space Shuttle began flying, selling it as an orbital laboratory, repair station, and a jumping off point for lunar and Mars missions. NASA found a strong advocate in President Ronald Reagan , who declared in a 1984 speech: America has always been greatest when we dared to be great. We can reach for greatness again. We can follow our dreams to distant stars, living and working in space for peaceful, economic, and scientific gain. Tonight I am directing NASA to develop

6600-444: The Space Shuttle, while a massive technological accomplishment, would not be able to live up to all its promises. Designed to be a single-stage-to-orbit spaceplane, the X-30 had both civil and military applications. With the end of the Cold War , the X-30 was canceled in 1992 before reaching flight status. Following the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003, President Bush started the Constellation program to smoothly replace

6720-483: The Space Shuttle. Due to technical challenges, the spacecraft was cancelled in 2001. Despite this, it was the first time a commercial space company directly expended a significant amount of its resources into spacecraft development. The advent of space tourism also forced NASA to challenge its assumption that only governments would have people in space. The first space tourist was Dennis Tito , an American investment manager and former aerospace engineer who contracted with

6840-507: The Space Station Freedom was controversial, with much of the debate centering on cost. Several redesigns to reduce cost were conducted in the early 1990s, stripping away much of its functions. Despite calls for Congress to terminate the program, it continued, in large part because by 1992 it had created 75,000 jobs across 39 states. By 1993, President Bill Clinton attempted to significantly reduce NASA's budget and directed costs be significantly reduced, aerospace industry jobs were not lost, and

6960-409: The TOMS-2 instrument on the Russian Meteor 3-5 spacecraft launched in 1991. The TOMS instrument was designed to measure total column atmospheric ozone, but also measured global distributions of sulfur dioxide and aerosols due to volcanic eruptions . Ozone concentrations were determined by observing the Earth's albedo at the top of the atmosphere in the ultraviolet (UV) portion of the spectrum using

7080-399: The U.S. risked become a second or third-rate space power. As early as the Reagan Administration, there had been calls for NASA to expand private sector involvement in space exploration rather than do it all in-house. In the 1990s, NASA and Lockheed Martin entered into an agreement to develop the Lockheed Martin X-33 demonstrator of the VentureStar spaceplane, which was intended to replace

7200-409: The US's premier aeronautics agency, NACA formed the core of NASA's new structure by reassigning 8,000 employees and three major research laboratories. NASA also proceeded to absorb the Naval Research Laboratory's Project Vanguard, the Army's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and the Army Ballistic Missile Agency under Wernher von Braun . This left NASA firmly as the United States' civil space lead and

7320-430: The antenna azimuth, incidence angle, polarization, and radar frequency. QuikSCAT uses a dual-beam, conically scanning antenna that samples the full range of azimuth angles during each antenna revolution. Backscatter measurements are obtained at fixed incidence angles of 46° and 54°, providing up to four views of each region of the surface at different incidence angles. Standard processing of the QuikSCAT measurements yields

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7440-401: The atmosphere is mostly transparent to non-precipitating clouds and aerosols, although rain produces significant alteration of the signal. The spacecraft is in a Sun-synchronous orbit , with equatorial crossing times of ascending swaths at about 06:00 LST ±30 minutes. Along the equator, consecutive swaths are separated by 2,800 km. QuikSCAT orbits Earth at an altitude of 802 km and at

7560-406: The civil space program , aeronautics research, and space research. Established in 1958 , it succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) to give the U.S. space development effort a distinct civilian orientation, emphasizing peaceful applications in space science . It has since led most of America's space exploration programs, including Project Mercury , Project Gemini ,

7680-416: The concentration of ozone and other trace constituents (such as Nitric acid (HNO 3 ) and H 2 O ) in the stratosphere and to monitor ozone layer dynamics. The ILAS system consisted of two observation packages: One was a 12 cm (4.7 in) telescope containing 44 pyroelectric detectors linearly arrayed for observations in the infrared region of the spectrum (6.0-6.8, 7.3-11.8 microns). The other

7800-416: The dish could not rotate after this date, its radar capabilities remained fully intact. It continued operating in this mode until the full mission was terminated on October 2, 2018. Data from this mode of the mission was used to improve the accuracy of other satellite surface wind datasets by inter-calibrating other Ku-band scatterometers. QuikSCAT measured winds in measurement swaths 1,800 km wide centered on

7920-400: The failed one. They planned to build it and have it prepared for launch as soon as possible to limit the gap in data between the two satellites. In just 12 months, the Quick Scatterometer (QuikSCAT) satellite was constructed and ready to be launched, faster than any other NASA mission since the 1950s. The QuikSCAT project was originally budgeted at $ 93 million, including the physical satellite,

8040-420: The first close up view of the planet. Both probes became the first objects to leave the Solar System. The Voyager program launched in 1977, conducting flybys of Jupiter and Saturn , Neptune , and Uranus on a trajectory to leave the Solar System. The Galileo spacecraft, deployed from the Space Shuttle flight STS-34 , was the first spacecraft to orbit Jupiter, discovering evidence of subsurface oceans on

8160-405: The first crew to make it habitable and operational. Skylab hosted nine missions and was decommissioned in 1974 and deorbited in 1979, two years prior to the first launch of the Space Shuttle and any possibility of boosting its orbit. In 1975, the Apollo–Soyuz mission was the first ever international spaceflight and a major diplomatic accomplishment between the Cold War rivals, which also marked

8280-402: The first humans to see the Earth as a globe in space, the first to witness an Earthrise , and the first to see and manually photograph the far side of the Moon. The first lunar landing was conducted by Apollo   11. Commanded by Neil Armstrong with astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins , Apollo   11 was one of the most significant missions in NASA's history, marking the end of

8400-414: The four Great Observatories , and associated programs. The Launch Services Program oversees launch operations for its uncrewed launches . NASA traces its roots to the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). Despite being the birthplace of aviation, by 1914 the United States recognized that it was far behind Europe in aviation capability. Determined to regain American leadership in aviation,

8520-453: The ground station and the constituent gases derived from the spectral response. A differential type laser radar system was used to eliminate the attenuating effects of the atmosphere. The TOMS instrument, developed by NASA/ GSFC as part of the Mission to Planet Earth (MTPE), was flown on ADEOS. The TOMS instrument continued the long-term measurement of global total-column ozone begun with the TOMS instrument on Nimbus 7 launched in 1978 and

8640-506: The head of the National Hurricane Center at the time, stated in a public message that the loss of the QuikSCAT satellite would harm the quality of hurricane forecasts. This followed a battery anomaly in which the spacecraft was temporarily unable to perform nominal science observations due to limited power. He claimed that three-day forecasts would be roughly 16% less accurate following the loss of QuikSCAT. This position

8760-483: The horizontal distribution of greenhouse effect gases (carbon dioxide , methane , nitrous oxide , etc.) and the vertical distribution of temperature and water vapor . The IMG used an interferometric spectrometer which scanned the spectrum from the middle infrared to thermal infrared (0.3 to 15 microns). A mechanical cryogenic coolant system will be used to regulate the temperature of the quantum detectors. An image motion compensation mirror will be used to compensate for

8880-451: The last flight of the Apollo capsule. Flown in 1975, a U.S. Apollo spacecraft docked with a Soviet Soyuz capsule. During the 1960s, NASA started its space science and interplanetary probe program. The Mariner program was its flagship program, launching probes to Venus , Mars , and Mercury in the 1960s. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory was the lead NASA center for robotic interplanetary exploration, making significant discoveries about

9000-592: The launch rocket, and ongoing support for its science mission. A series of rocket failures in November 1998 grounded the Titan (rocket family) launcher fleet, delayed the launch of QuikSCAT, and added $ 5 million to this initial cost. A new instrument, the SeaWinds scatterometer, was carried on the satellite. The SeaWinds instrument, a specialized microwave radar system, measured both the speed and direction of winds near

9120-534: The local surface wind. Over water surfaces, the microwave backscatter is highly correlated with the surface wind speed and direction. The particular wavelength of the surface waves is determined by the wavelength of the microwave radiation emitted from the scatterometer's radar. QuikSCAT consists of an active microwave radar that infers surface winds from the roughness of the sea surface based on measurements of radar backscatter cross section, denoted as σ 0 . σ 0 varies with surface wind speed and direction relative to

9240-434: The majority of the International Space Station, Russia, Canada, Japan, and the European Space Agency all contributed components. Despite NASA's insistence that costs would be kept at a budget of $ 17.4, they kept rising and NASA had to transfer funds from other programs to keep the International Space Station solvent. Ultimately, the total cost of the station was $ 150 billion, with the United States paying for two-thirds.Following

9360-519: The materials to construct the satellite. In light of the record-setting construction time, engineers who worked on the project were given the American Electronics Achievement Award. This was only achieved due to the new type of contract made specifically for this satellite. Instead of the usual year given to select a contract and initiate development, it was constrained to one month. The newly constructed satellite

9480-634: The moon of Enceladus , which could harbor life. Finally launched in 2006, the New Horizons mission was the first spacecraft to visit Pluto and the Kuiper Belt . Beyond interplanetary probes, NASA has launched many space telescopes . Launched in the 1960s, the Orbiting Astronomical Observatory were NASA's first orbital telescopes, providing ultraviolet, gamma-ray, x-ray, and infrared observations. NASA launched

9600-599: The ocean surface. It used two radars and a spinning antenna to record data across nine-tenths of the oceans of the world in a single day. It recorded roughly four hundred thousand wind measurements daily, each covering an area 1,800 kilometers (1,100 mi) in width. Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the NSCAT team jointly managed the project of construction of the satellite at the Goddard Space Flight Center . Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. supplied

9720-436: The ocean, scatterometers such as QuikSCAT can also provide information on the fractional coverage of sea ice, track large icebergs (>5 km in length), differentiate types of ice and snow, and detect the freeze–thaw line in polar regions. While the rotating dish antenna can no longer spin as designed, the rest of the instrument remains functional and data transmission capabilities remain intact, although it cannot determine

9840-570: The radiation levels on Mars were equal to those on the International Space Station , greatly increasing the possibility of Human exploration, and observed the key chemical ingredients for life to occur. In 2013, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution ( MAVEN ) mission observed the Martian upper atmosphere and space environment and in 2018, the Interior exploration using Seismic Investigations Geodesy, and Heat Transport ( InSight ) studied

9960-505: The representation of meteorological data (BUFR) format by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NOAA/NESDIS) . The data latency goal is 3 hours, and almost all data are available within 3.5 hours of measurement. To meet these requirements, the QuikSCAT NRT data processing algorithms combine the finest-grained backscatter measurements into fewer composites than

10080-413: The rocket was re-oriented to protect the satellite from the sun. For the next 48 minutes, the two crafts flew over Antarctica and later over Madagascar, where the rocket reached its desired altitude of 500 mi (800 km). At 59 minutes after launch, the satellite separated from the rocket and was pushed into its circular orbit around Earth. Shortly after, the solar arrays were deployed and connection

10200-475: The satellite ground track with no nadir gap, such as occurs with fan-beam scatterometers such as NSCAT. Because of its wide swath and lack of in-swath gaps, QuikSCAT was able to collect at least one vector wind measurement over 93% of the World's Oceans each day. This improved significantly over the 77% coverage provided by NSCAT. Each day, QuikSCAT recorded over 400,000 measurements of wind speed and direction. This

10320-548: The satellite orbital motion. Measurements was made in 20 km (12 mi) swaths at 8 km (5.0 mi) resolution. The NSCAT, an active microwave satellite scatterometer, was developed by NASA / JPL as part of the NASA's Earth Probe Mission To Planet Earth (MTPE) program and flown on the Japanese ADEOS. The NSCAT instrument is intended to be a follow-on to the Seasat scatterometer (SASS) flown in 1978. The NSCAT

10440-423: The satellite was and if it was possible to restart the spinning antenna. Contingency plans for what to do in the event of QuikSCAT's failure were also reviewed. A replacement for this spacecraft, ISS-RapidScat , was launched in 2014. NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration ( NASA / ˈ n æ s ə / ) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government responsible for

10560-507: The satellites were repaired and relaunched. Despite ushering in a new era of spaceflight, where NASA was contracting launch services to commercial companies, the Space Shuttle was criticized for not being as reusable and cost-effective as advertised. In 1986, Challenger disaster on the STS-51L mission resulted in the loss of the spacecraft and all seven astronauts on launch, grounding the entire space shuttle fleet for 36 months and forced

10680-491: The science data algorithms. Otherwise the QuikSCAT NRT processing algorithms are identical to the science data algorithms. Applications of QuikSCAT in operational tropical cyclone analysis and forecasting at the National Hurricane Center include identifying and locating the center of tropical cyclones , estimating its intensity, and wind radii analysis. The scatterometer's ability to record wind speeds at

10800-593: The sea surface. In 1996, the NASA Scatterometer (NSCAT) was launched aboard the Japanese Advanced Earth Observing Satellite ( ADEOS-1 ). This satellite was designed to record surface winds over water across the world for several years. However, an unexpected failure in 1997 led to an early termination of the NSCAT project. Following this briefly successful mission, NASA began constructing a new satellite to replace

10920-676: The separation of dark and regular matter during galactic collisions. Finally, the Spitzer Space Telescope is an infrared telescope launched in 2003 from a Delta II rocket. It is in a trailing orbit around the Sun, following the Earth and discovered the existence of brown dwarf stars . Other telescopes, such as the Cosmic Background Explorer and the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe , provided evidence to support

11040-560: The setback caused by the Apollo   1 fire, which killed three astronauts, the program proceeded. Apollo   8 was the first crewed spacecraft to leave low Earth orbit and the first human spaceflight to reach the Moon . The crew orbited the Moon ten times on December   24 and   25, 1968, and then traveled safely back to Earth . The three Apollo   8 astronauts— Frank Borman , James Lovell , and William Anders —were

11160-549: The space shuttle be retired. In 2006, the Space Shuttle returned to flight, conducting several mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope , but was retired following the STS-135 resupply mission to the International Space Station in 2011. NASA never gave up on the idea of a space station after Skylab's reentry in 1979. The agency began lobbying politicians to support building a larger space station as soon as

11280-481: The space station spelled an end to the program. In 2003, a second space shuttle was destroyed when the Columbia was destroyed upon reentry during the STS-107 mission, resulting in the loss of the spacecraft and all seven astronauts. This accident marked the beginning of the retiring of the Space Shuttle program, with President George W. Bush directing that upon the completion of the International Space Station,

11400-414: The surface allows meteorologists to determine whether a low pressure area is forming and enhance the ability to predict sudden changes in structure and strength. The first tropical cyclone captured by the SeaWinds instrument was Typhoon Olga in the western Pacific basin . The system was monitored by the satellite from its generation on July 28 to its demise in early August. In 2007, Bill Proenza ,

11520-578: The surface vector wind. It can, however, still measure radar backscatter at a fixed azimuth angle. QuikSCAT is being used in this reduced mode to cross-calibrate other scatterometers in hopes of providing long-term and consistent surface wind datasets over multiple on-orbit scatterometer platforms, including the operational European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) Advanced Scatterometer (ASCAT) on MetOp-A and MetOp-B , India's Oceansat-2 scatterometer operated by

11640-603: The surface was used to derive the backscattered radiation as a function of both wind speed and direction and to determine the wind vector. The NSCAT consisted of three major subsystems: the Radio Frequency Subsystem (RFS), the antenna subsystem, and the Digital Data Subsystem (DSS). Transmitted pulses at 13.995 GHz are generated by the RFS to each antenna beam. A low-noise amplifier of 3 dB

11760-471: The team completed the checks, and QuikSCAT began collecting and transmitting backscatter measurements. Many operational numerical weather prediction centers began assimilating QuikSCAT data in early 2002, with preliminary assessments indicating a positive impact. The U.S. National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) led

11880-422: The total ozone amount. The TOMS completed a cross scan in eight seconds, with one second for retrace, to record 37 scenes per scan. At each scene, a chopper sequentially sampled all six wavelengths four times. The TOMS used a PMT and a separate mercury-argon lamp for wavelength calibration and a depolarizer. On 28 August 1996, the satellite adjusted its attitude to control its orbit. As a result of this maneuver,

12000-509: The tropics at the U.S. Ocean Prediction Center and the U.S. National Weather Service . Data was also provided in real-time over most of the ice-free global oceans, including traditionally data-sparse regions of the ocean where few observations exist, such as in the Southern Ocean and the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. QuikSCAT observations are provided to these operational users in near-real-time (NRT) in binary universal form for

12120-579: The use of fuel cells instead of batteries, and conducted the first American spacewalks and rendezvous operations . The Ranger Program was started in the 1950s as a response to Soviet lunar exploration, however most missions ended in failure. The Lunar Orbiter program had greater success, mapping the surface in preparation for Apollo landings and measured Selenography , conducted meteoroid detection, and measured radiation levels. The Surveyor program conducted uncrewed lunar landings and takeoffs, as well as taking surface and regolith observations. Despite

12240-494: The various projects, mission architectures and associated timelines relevant to lunar and Mars exploration and science. ADEOS I ADEOS I ( Advanced Earth Observing Satellite 1 ) was an Earth observation satellite launched by NASDA in 1996. The mission's Japanese name, Midori means "green". The mission ended in July 1997 after the satellite sustained structural damage to the solar panel . Its successor, ADEOS II ,

12360-419: The way by initiating assimilation of QuikSCAT winds beginning, respectively, on 13 January 2002 and 22 January 2002. QuikSCAT surface winds were an important tool for analysis and forecasting at the U.S. National Hurricane Center since becoming available in near–real time in 2000. QuikSCAT wind fields were also used as a tool in the analysis and forecasting of extratropical cyclones and maritime weather outside

12480-461: Was Venus , sharing many similar characteristics to Earth. First visited by American Mariner 2 spacecraft, Venus was observed to be a hot and inhospitable planet. Follow-on missions included the Pioneer Venus project in the 1970s and Magellan , which performed radar mapping of Venus' surface in the 1980s and 1990s. Future missions were flybys of Venus, on their way to other destinations in

12600-535: Was a multispectral radiometer for observing the Earth in the visible and near-IR wavelengths at high spatial resolution. The AVNIR employs a Schmidt optical system and an electronic scanning CCD silicon array. The AVNIR consisted of three visible channels (0.40-0.50, 0.52-0.62, 0.62-0.72 microns) and one near-IR channel (0.82-0.92 micron). In addition, the AVNIR also had a panchromatic channel at 0.52-0.72 micron. The AVNIR

12720-475: Was a 3 cm (1.2 in) telescope consisting of a photodiode array for observations in the visible region (0.753-0.784 microns). Sunrise and sunset observations was made at 2 km (1.2 mi) resolution over the 10–60 km (6.2–37.3 mi) vertical range. The IMG instrument was provided by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) of Japan for ADEOS. The IMG is designed to monitor

12840-489: Was a joint NASA–U.S. Air Force program, with the hypersonic test aircraft becoming the first non-dedicated spacecraft to cross from the atmosphere to outer space. The X-15 also served as a testbed for Apollo program technologies, as well as ramjet and scramjet propulsion. Escalations in the Cold War between the United States and Soviet Union prompted President John F. Kennedy to charge NASA with landing an American on

12960-683: Was able to previously accomplish. NASA launched its first commercial satellites on the STS-5 mission and in 1984, the STS-41-C mission conducted the world's first on-orbit satellite servicing mission when the Challenger captured and repaired the malfunctioning Solar Maximum Mission satellite. It also had the capability to return malfunctioning satellite to Earth, like it did with the Palapa B2 and Westar 6 satellites. Once returned to Earth,

13080-474: Was able to tilt 40° on either side of the ground track producing a 5.7° field of view and an 60 km (37 mi) swath width . The ground resolution was 16 m (52 ft) for the multispectral bands and 8 m (26 ft) for the panchromatic band. The ILAS instrument was provided by the Environment Agency of Japan for ADEOS mission. The ILAS was designed to measure the variability of

13200-545: Was also a concern with sharing sensitive space technologies with the Europeans, which had the potential to dilute America's technical lead. Ultimately, an international agreement to develop the Space Station Freedom program would be signed with thirteen countries in 1985, including the European Space Agency member states, Canada , and Japan . Despite its status as the first international space program,

13320-590: Was announced that the satellite was likely at the end of its mission and would no longer be used. The sensor on the satellite was confirmed to have failed around 0700  UTC . The loss only affected the real-time scanning equipment; the long-term data collection remained intact and operational. According to NASA, the failure resulted from the age of the satellite. The mechanism that seized was designed to last only five years; however, it remained operational for roughly ten years, twice its expected use. On November 24, NASA managers began to assess how extensively affected

13440-682: Was built by CNES to study changes to Earth's ozone layer . The Polarization and Directionality of the Earth's Reflectance (POLDER) device was also developed by CNES, and was also launched on ADEOS II . The Improved Limb Atmospheric Spectrometer (ILAS) was developed by NASDA and the Environment Agency of Japan , and used grating spectrometers to measure the properties of trace gases using solar occultation . The Retroreflector in Space (RIS) and Interferometric Monitor for Greenhouse Gases (IMG) were both developed by Japan, and studied atmospheric trace gases and greenhouse gases respectively. The AVNIR

13560-462: Was controversial as it relied on unpublished data. Although the satellite aids in forecasting hurricane position and intensity, it does not do so exclusively. In mid-2009, a gradual deterioration in the bearings of the antenna's rotation mechanism was noticed. Friction caused by this deterioration slowed the rotation rate of the antenna, leading to gaps in data recorded by QuikSCAT. The antenna ultimately failed on November 23, 2009. Upon failing, it

13680-435: Was designed to measure the ocean surface wind velocity and provided data on air-sea interactions, calculations for large-scale fluxes between atmosphere and ocean, air-sea coupling and interannual variability of the Earth's climate. The NSCAT was a 13.995 GHz ( Ku-band ) active microwave radar that transmitted continuous pulses to the ocean surface and received backscattered radiation from the Earth. The radar cross section of

13800-455: Was established with the satellite at 8:32 pm PDT with a tracking station in Norway. For the next two weeks, the shuttle used bursts from its engine to fine-tune its location and correct its course to the desired motion. On July 7, eighteen days after take-off, the scatterometer was turned on and a team of 12 personnel made detailed reviews of function of QuikSCAT. A month after entering orbit,

13920-497: Was launched in 1990 on STS-31 from the Discovery and could view galaxies 15 billion light years away. A major defect in the telescope's mirror could have crippled the program, had NASA not used computer enhancement to compensate for the imperfection and launched five Space Shuttle servicing flights to replace the damaged components. The Compton Gamma Ray Observatory was launched from the Atlantis on STS-37 in 1991, discovering

14040-401: Was launched in 2002. Like the first mission, it ended after less than a year, also following solar panel malfunctions. ADEOS was designed to observe Earth's environmental changes, focusing on global warming , depletion of the ozone layer , and deforestation . On board the satellite are eight instruments developed by NASDA , NASA , and CNES . The Ocean Color and Temperature Scanner (OCTS)

14160-553: Was set to launch on a Titan II rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The rocket lifted off at 7:15 pm PDT on 19 June 1999. Roughly two minutes and thirty seconds after launch, the first engine was shut down and the second was engaged as it moved over the Baja California Peninsula . A minute later, the nose cone, at the top of the rocket, separated into two parts. Sixteen seconds later,

14280-404: Was to observe the Earth's radiation budget under different view angles and polarizations to study the optical and physical properties of clouds and the interactions of solar radiation with the Earth atmosphere system. POLDER was equipped with a wide angle objective taking two dimensional images at various wavelengths in the visible and near-infrared at different polarizations. The instrument will use

14400-544: Was used to amplify the return echo. The antenna subsystem consisted of 6 identical, dual-polarization fan beam antennas, approximately 3 m (9.8 ft) long. The six antennas were calibrated to 0.25 dB prior to launch. The NSCAT was the first spaceborne scatterometer to employ on-board digital processing of the Doppler-shifted signal. The NSCAT measured two swaths, each 600 km (370 mi) wide at nadir and radar cross sections in three azimuth angles for

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