| definition |
- Aqua is a major international Earth Science satellite mission centered at NASA. Launched on May 4, 2002, the satellite has six different Earth-observing instruments on board and is named for the large amount of information being obtained about water in the Earth system from its stream of approximately 89 Gigabytes of data a day. The water variables being measured include almost all elements of the water cycle and involve water in its liquid, solid, and vapor forms. Additional variables being measured include radiative energy fluxes, aerosols, vegetation cover on the land, phytoplankton and dissolved organic matter in the oceans, and air, land, and water temperatures. Key Aqua Facts Joint with Brazil and Japan Dimensions: 2.7 m x 2.5 m x 6.5 m stowed; 4.8 m x 16.7 m x 8.0 m deployed Mass: 2,934 kg (1,750 kg spacecraft, 1,082 kg instruments, 102 kg propellants) Power: 4,600 W silicon cell array and a NiH2 battery Average Data Rate: 89 Gbytes/day Data Storage: 136-Gbit solid state recorder (SSR) for storage of up to two orbits of data Data Relay Methods: Direct downlink from the SSR to polar ground stations; direct broadcast Data Links: X-band Telemetry: S-band Group: Platform_Details Entry_ID: AQUA Group: Platform_Identification Platform_Category: Earth Observation Satellites Platform_Series_or_Entity: EOS (Earth Observing System) Short_Name: AQUA Long_Name: Earth Observing System, AQUA End_Group Group: Platform_Associated_Instruments Short_Name: CERES-FM4 Short_Name: CERES-FM3 Short_Name: AIRS Short_Name: AMSR-E Short_Name: AMSU-A Short_Name: HSB Short_Name: MODIS End_Group Group: Orbit Orbit_Altitude: 705 km Orbit_Inclination: 98.2 degrees Equator_Crossing: 1:30 p.m. (south to north) and 1:30 a.m. (north to south) Period: 98.8 minutes Repeat_Cycle: 16 days (233 revolutions) Perigee: 699 km (434 mi) Apogee: 706 km (438 mi) Orbit_Type: LEO > Low Earth Orbit > Polar Sun-Synchronous End_Group Creation_Date: 2007-04-16 Online_Resource: http://aqua.nasa.gov/ Online_Resource: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/aqua/ Online_Resource: http://aqua.nasa.gov/content/instruments Sample_Image: http://gcmd.gsfc.nasa.gov/KeywordSearch/default/images/aqua.gif Group: Platform_Logistics Launch_Date: 2002-05-04 Launch_Site: Vandenberg Air Force Base, USA Design_Life: 6 years Primary_Sponsor: USA/NASA Primary_Sponsor: BRAZIL/INPE Primary_Sponsor: JAPAN/JAXA End_Group End_Group
|
