* Astronomy

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QuikScat satellite

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JPL Wind Watcher Blows Into its Second Decade
Since its launch a decade ago, QuikScat has advanced Earth science research and helped improve environmental predictions using measurements of global radar backscatter from Earth's ocean, land and ice surfaces. QuikScat data help scientists better understand and predict the processes that drive our climate, such as ocean circulation and the global water cycle.

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QuikScat Finds Tempests Brewing In 'Ordinary' Storms
Satellite, Now Entering Its Second Decade, Has Revolutionized Marine Weather Forecasts

"June is busting out all over," as the song says, and with it, U.S. residents along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts begin to gaze warily toward the ocean, aware that the hurricane season is revving up. In the decade since NASA's QuikScat satellite and its SeaWinds scatterometer launched in June 1999, the satellite has measured the wind speed and wind direction of these powerful storms, providing data that are increasingly used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Hurricane Centre and other world forecasting agencies. The data help scientists detect these storms, understand their wind fields, estimate their intensity and track their movement.
But tropical cyclones aren't the only storms that generate hurricane-force winds. Among others that do is a type of storm that dominates the weather in parts of the United States and other non-tropical regions every fall, winter and into spring: extratropical cyclones.

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As a debate rages over an aging weather satellite's role in tracking hurricanes, there's no question about its importance to the safety of thousands of ships at sea.

"There is no doubt that as a result of . . . QuikSCAT, there are ships that haven't sunk, and there are sailors who haven't died. In other words, it saves lives and property" - Robert Atlas, who as the chief meteorologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre helped launch the research satellite in 1999.

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America's hurricane forecasters could compensate for the loss of a key satellite that's well past its prime, experts assured a Senate panel Wednesday.
But senators also heard that the next generation of weather and climate research satellites has been delayed by mismanagement, staff turnover and inter-agency squabbling.
At issue in the Senate Commerce Committee hearing, chaired by Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., was the aging QuickScat satellite, a NASA research tool that has proven extremely helpful to forecasters tracking the development of hurricanes far offshore.

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Candid storm chief gets a lashing
Superiors in the National Weather Service chastised the new director of the National Hurricane Centre for his comments about a failing satellite and the NOAA's spending priorities.
The new director of the National Hurricane Centre, an outspoken critic of his superiors since he took over in January, charged Friday night that they are trying to muzzle him and could be setting him up for termination.

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NASA's Quick Scatterometer (QuikScat) was lofted into space at 7:15 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time June 19, 1999 atop a U.S. Air Force Titan II launch vehicle from Space Launch Complex 4 West at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base. The satellite was launched in a south-southwesterly direction, soaring over the Pacific Ocean at sunset as it ascended into space to achieve an initial elliptical orbit with a maximum altitude of about 800 kilometres above Earth's surface

Source

TLE Data

QUIKSCAT
1 25789U 99034A   07163.45142016 -.00000010  00000-0  14004-4 0  8877
2 25789 098.6385 351.1106 0000391 064.6471 295.4752 14.26755419415547

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An aging weather satellite crucial to accurate predictions on the intensity and path of hurricanes could fail at any moment and plans to launch a replacement have been pushed back seven years to 2016.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's chief said the failure of the QuikScat satellite could bring more uncertainty to forecasts and widen the areas that are placed under hurricane watches and warnings.
If the satellite faltered, experts estimate that the accuracy of two-day forecasts could suffer by 10 percent and three-day forecasts by 16 percent, which could translate into miles of coastline and the difference between a city being evacuated or not.

"We would go blind. It would be significantly hazardous" - Wayne Sallade, emergency manager in Charlotte County, which was hit hard by Hurricane Charley in 2004.

A NOAA spokesman disputed that, saying alternatives such as using data from other satellites would help diminish any increased uncertainty coming from the loss of QuikScat.
In the letter to a Florida congressman, NOAA Administrator Conrad Lautenbacher blamed the delays on technical and budget problems. Scientists said if QuikScat failed, they may have to rely on less accurate satellites.
QuikScat, launched in 1999 and designed to last two to three years, provides key data on wind speed and direction over the ocean. Weather aircraft and buoys can also obtain similar measurements near a storm, but they do not provide a constant flow of data as QuikScat does.
Last year, the satellite suffered a major setback - the failure of a transmitter used to send data to Earth about every 90 minutes. Now the satellite is limping along on a backup transmitter and has other problems.
The backup transmitter could last years, but there are no guarantees and no warnings when it is about to fail.

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