NASA announced last Thursday (28/11/02) that it plans to launch three satellites for a mission around the Earth, including two that will study the climate and measure the ice sheet and ocean winds
30.11.2002
By: Avi Blizovsky
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In the photo: the ICESAT satellite under construction
NASA announced last Thursday (28/11/02) that it plans to launch three satellites for a mission around the Earth, including two that will study the climate and measure the ice sheet and ocean winds.
SeaWinds, a $154 million radar satellite, will measure wind speed and direction over ninety percent of the oceans each day. It is scheduled to be launched on December 14 from the Tangshima Launch Center in Japan.
Another mission, a satellite costing 282 million dollars will measure the ice, clouds and land elevation Icesat (Ice, Cloud and land Elevation) and will also launch a small satellite Chipsat (acronym for Cosmic Hot Interstellar Plasma Spectrometer satellite), both will be launched on December 19 in the same A launch missile at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
Icesat will measure the variation in the height of the glaciers covering Greenland, Antarctica and other places. According to the scientific director of the project, G. Zwally, the data provided by the satellite will help scientists track the relationship between the melting ice and the level of the ocean surface.
SeaWinds will be the last in a series of instruments that will measure the wind in the oceans from space. The data will be used to study ocean currents and will be able to provide initial indications of climatic phenomena such as El Niño.
Chipset will look out into space and look for signs of the remnants of one or two supernovae that have occurred in the region closest to the solar system in the last ten million years. The device will focus on the glow of the interstellar medium - the gases and particles floating in the free space between the stars.
