* Astronomy

Members Login
Username 
 
Password 
    Remember Me  
Home -> Astronomy News -> Mission News -> CloudSat, CALIPSO launch
Post Info TOPIC: CloudSat, CALIPSO launch
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
CALIPSO Satellite
Permalink  
 

CALIPSO Takes Three-Billionth 'Photo' Marking Fifth Year in Space

For a satellite that's only five years old, CALIPSO has accomplished a lot. The Earth-observing spacecraft took its three-billionth photo -- actually a "lidar profile" -- on June 2.
June 7 marked the fifth year in space for the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation satellite.
Since its launch April 23, 2006, CALIPSO has traveled 1,207,008,000 km, and along the way has generated data that would fill about 10,500 DVDs or 75,000 CDs.
Read more



__________________
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
CloudSat mission
Permalink  
 

Gaze up at a cloud-filled sky, and you may spot the white, fluffy shape of a dragon, fish or elephant. Looking at the same sky, Graeme Stephens sees a different vision -- a possible future for Earth's climate.
Stephens, a professor at Colorado State University in Ft. Collins, is principal investigator of NASA's CloudSat mission, launched in 2006 to improve our understanding of the role clouds play in our complicated climate system. Stephens says that as Earth's global temperature continues to rise, water vapour -- the most abundant greenhouse gas on Earth, which traps heat much as carbon dioxide does -- will continue to build, with uncertain results.
Read more

__________________
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
RE: CloudSat, CALIPSO launch
Permalink  
 

The Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. free-flying atmospheric lidar aboard NASA's Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) mission, fired its one billionth laser pulse over the Ivory Coast on Sunday, Feb. 3., making it the longest lasting, most powerful on-orbit space laser.

Read more

CALIPSO
Expand (98kb, 854 x 558)

Period      98.83     
Incl.      98.22     
Apogee  703     
Perigee  702

TLE Data
CALIPSO
1 29108U 06016B   08043.48667241 +.00000103 +00000-0 +32856-4 0 05871
2 29108 098.2206 347.8290 0001052 079.7186 280.4131 14.57110658095391


__________________
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
CALIPSO satellite
Permalink  
 

NASA Langley and Hampton University scientists are marking the one-year anniversary of the flight of the CALIPSO satellite today.
CALIPSO, a joint effort between NASA, Hampton University and the French space agency, CNES, is providing data to study how clouds and atmospheric aerosols affect Earth's climate.

Read more

__________________
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
Rain and Snow
Permalink  
 

People have lived with rain and snow for millennia, and scientists have studied weather for more than a century. You might think that, after all that time, we would have precipitation pretty much figured out. And you'd be wrong.

"It's amazing how much we don't know about global patterns of rain and snow" -  Walt Petersen, an atmospheric scientist with the National Space Science and Technology Centre (NSSTC) and the University of Alabama (UAH) in Huntsville.

For instance, how much snow falls worldwide each day--and where? How much water falls to Earth in the form of light, drizzly rain?

"These are just a few of the outstanding questions".

 Answering them would fill significant gaps in our understanding of the Earth's climate system.

Read more


__________________
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
RE: CloudSat, CALIPSO launch
Permalink  
 

Scientists around the world can now glimpse inside Earth’s storms with the instruments aboard two Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. (Boulder, Colorado.) Earth-observation missions launched earlier this year.
The CloudSat and CALIPSO satellites launched on April 28 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California have now completed commissioning activities.

Read more

__________________
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
Permalink  
 

Hurricane Daniel intensified between July 18 and July 23rd. NASA's new CloudSat satellite was able to capture and confirm this transformation in its side-view images of Hurricane Daniel as seen in this series of images.

cloudsatdaniel

The top images are from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) to give an idea of how the storm looked from the top. The bottom images are from CloudSat.

Read more

-- Edited by Blobrana at 20:00, 2006-08-07

__________________
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
Permalink  
 

NASA Releases Initial Images From CALIPSO
The Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation spacecraft known as CALIPSO is returning never-before-seen images of clouds and aerosols, tiny particles suspended in the air.
These new images are revealing the secrets of how clouds and aerosols form, evolve and interact with the atmosphere. CALIPSO's first images were taken in early June. They highlight the results of a major lava dome collapse at the Soufriere Hills Volcano on the island of Montserrat in the Caribbean. The dome collapse on May 20 involved an explosion that sent ash clouds 55,000 feet into the sky.

Source



Read more

__________________
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
Rocket Body Re-entry
Permalink  
 

The Delta II Stage 2 Rocket Body launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the 28th April, 2006, for the CALIPSO & CloudSat mission, is predicted to re-enter the Earths atmosphere on the 6th July @ 13:30 UTC ± 6 hours.

DELTA 2 RB

TLE Data

DELTA 2 R/B
1 29109U 06016C 06186.89487448 .07791507 61268-5 31961-3 0 1659
2 29109 102.7605 185.8083 0048426 253.4093 106.2081 16.36519506 10750
1 29109U 06016C 06186.52751368 .04398953 61174-5 29894-3 0 1646
2 29109 102.7582 185.0771 0057532 252.6858 106.8124 16.32180992 10694
1 29109U 06016C 06186.46619959 .04127473 61137-5 29787-3 0 1634
2 29109 102.7583 184.9556 0058653 252.8127 106.6772 16.31667835 10681
1 29109U 06016C 06186.22088257 .03287925 60907-5 32997-3 0 1627
2 29109 102.7544 184.4691 0061745 252.6537 107.5795 16.29521258 10648
1 29109U 06016C 06185.85205810 .02340777 60750-5 33143-3 0 1614
2 29109 102.7609 183.7371 0067271 254.3248 105.0624 16.26901131 10581

__________________
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
CloudSat first image
Permalink  
 

The first images from NASA's new CloudSat satellite are already revealing never-before-seen 3-D details about clouds.

Mission managers tested the flight and ground system performance of the satellite's Cloud-Profiling Radar in late May, and found it to be working perfectly.

"CloudSat's radar performed flawlessly, and although the data are still very preliminary, it provided breathtaking new views of the weather on our planet. All major cloud system types were observed, and the radar demonstrated its ability to penetrate through almost all but the heaviest rainfall. We have now begun continuous radar operations, and we look forward to releasing our first validated data to the science community within nine months, hopefully sooner" - Graeme Stephens, CloudSat principal investigator and a professor at Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, US.

cloudsat-6-6-06

Just 30 seconds after radar activation, CloudSat obtained its first image - a slice of the atmosphere from the top to the surface of a warm storm front over the North Sea in the North Atlantic approaching Greenland. Unlike other satellite observations, the CloudSat radar image shows the storm's clouds and precipitation simultaneously. The front's warm air can be seen rising over colder air, with precipitation below.
The remaining orbits of the test recorded unique observations of other weather types on a scale never seen before. The radar obtained first-time observations of clouds and snow storms over the Antarctic. Until now, clouds have been hard to observe in polar regions using satellite remote sensing, particularly during the polar night season. The CloudSat observations also provided new views of sloping, frontal clouds and thunderstorms over Africa, both as individual storms and as part of larger tropical storm systems.

"We're seeing the atmosphere as we've never seen it before. We're no longer looking at clouds like images on a flat piece of paper, but instead we're peering into the clouds and seeing their layered complexity" - Deborah Vane, CloudSat deputy principal investigator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, California, US.

The first-ever millimetre wavelength radar, CloudSat's Cloud-Profiling Radar is more than 1,000 times more sensitive than typical weather radar. It can observe clouds and precipitation in a way never before possible, distinguishing between cloud particles and precipitation. Its measurements are expected to offer new insights into how fresh water is created from water vapour and how much of this water falls to the surface as rain and snow.

Read more

__________________
1 2 3 … 6  >  Last»  | Page of 6  sorted by
 
Quick Reply

Please log in to post quick replies.
Home -> Astronomy News -> Mission News -> CloudSat, CALIPSO launch


Create your own FREE Forum
Report Abuse 		Powered by ActiveBoard