Paper
12 October 2011 NASA's Earth Science Flight Program overview
Author Affiliations +
Abstract
NASA's Earth Science Division (ESD) conducts pioneering work in Earth system science, the interdisciplinary view of Earth that explores the interaction among the atmosphere, oceans, ice sheets, land surface interior, and life itself that has enabled scientists to measure global and climate changes and to inform decisions by governments, organizations, and people in the United States and around the world. The ESD makes the data collected and results generated by its missions accessible to other agencies and organizations to improve the products and services they provide, including air quality indices, disaster management, agricultural yield projections, and aviation safety. In addition to four missions now in development and 14 currently operating on-orbit, the ESD is now developing the first tier of missions recommended by the 2007 Earth Science Decadal Survey and is conducting engineering studies and technology development for the second tier. Furthermore, NASA's ESD is planning implementation of a set of climate continuity missions to assure availability of key data sets needed for climate science and applications. These include a replacement for the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO), OCO-2, planned for launch in 2013; refurbishment of the SAGE III atmospheric chemistry instrument to be hosted by the International Space Station (ISS) as early as 2014; and the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE FO) mission scheduled for launch in 2016. The new Earth Venture (EV) class of missions is a series of uncoupled, low to moderate cost, small to medium-sized, competitively selected, full orbital missions, instruments for orbital missions of opportunity, and sub-orbital projects.
© (2011) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Steven P. Neeck and Stephen M. Volz "NASA's Earth Science Flight Program overview", Proc. SPIE 8176, Sensors, Systems, and Next-Generation Satellites XV, 817602 (12 October 2011); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.899369
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KEYWORDS
Climatology

Earth sciences

Satellites

Space operations

Climate change

Environmental sensing

Carbon

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