Observing the Earth from space

[Funkworks]

A nice introduction:

 

[Hobie1dog]

the blue marble is my favorite picture

 

[Funkworks]

the blue marble is my favorite picture

This one I think. One of the most famous.



I'm looking into how data is gathered.

 

[Hobie1dog]

no, no, no. the one showing the earth as a flat disc

 

[Funkworks]

no, no, no. the one showing the earth as a flat disc

Ahhh! This one:



Anyhoo, here's part of what I was looking for:

An instrument (OCO-3) on the ISS that measures the distribution of CO2:
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/orbiting-carbon-observatory-3-oco-3
Data from that OCO-3 instrument:
https://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/datasets?keywords=OCO-3&page=1
One of many articles analyzing some of that data;
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9501254

 

[Funkworks]

List of missions from JPL. I might concentrate on this "lab" first.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions?mission_status=current&page=1

 

[Funkworks]

Getting acquainted with some of the satellites and instruments.

One of the JPL missions is the “Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich” Satellite. It's designed to measure the height of the ocean, and the temperature and humidity in the troposphere (where we live), and will collect sea level measurements down to the centimeter for 90% of the world’s oceans.

The European Space Agency, the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the European Commission, and France's space agency, are also supporting the mission.

Instruments:

• Poseidon-4 SAR Radar Altimeter
• Advanced microwave radiometer for Climate (AMR-C)
• Global Navigation Satellite System - Radio Occultation (GNSS-RO)
• Doppler Orbitography and Radiopositioning Integrated by Satellite (DORIS)
• Laser Retroreflector Array (LRA)

It was brought in orbit by a Falcon 9 rocket in 2020.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/sentinel-6

https://blogs.nasa.gov/sentinel-6/2...earth-orbit-mission-begins-to-map-sea-levels/

 

[Funkworks]

Next on the list:

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3, or OCO-3, which is a space instrument designed to investigate the distribution of carbon dioxide on Earth.



It has a few websites:

https://ocov3.jpl.nasa.gov
https://directory.eoportal.org/web/eoportal/satellite-missions/i/iss-oco-3
Short video:



Location on the ISS (on the JEMEF platform):

 

[Funkworks]

Next up: ECOSTRESS (another instrument module on the ISS)

The ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station. It monitors “one of the most basic processes in living plants”: the loss of water through the tiny pores in leaves.

ECOSTRESS is addressing three overarching science questions:

• How is the terrestrial biosphere responding to changes in water availability?
• How do changes in diurnal vegetation water stress impact the global carbon cycle?
• Can agricultural vulnerability be reduced through advanced monitoring of agricultural water consumptive use and improved drought estimation

The ECOSTRESS mission is answering these questions by accurately measuring the temperature of plants. Plants regulate their temperature by releasing water through tiny pores on their leaves called stomata. If they have sufficient water they can maintain their temperature, but if there is insufficient water, their temperatures rise and this temperature rise can be measured with ECOSTRESS. The images acquired by ECOSTRESS are the most detailed temperature images of the surface ever acquired from space and can be used to measure the temperature of an individual farmers field.

One of the core products that will be produced by ECOSTRESS team is the Evaporative Stress Index (ESI). ESI is a leading drought indicator - it can indicate that plants are stressed and that a drought is likely to occur providing the option for decision makers to take action.

Three science objectives have been identified to address these questions:

• Identify critical thresholds of water use and water stress in key biomes (e.g., tropical/dry transition forests, boreal forests);
• Detect the timing, location, and predictive factors leading to plant water uptake decline and/or cessation over the diurnal cycle;
• Measure agricultural water consumptive use over CONUS at spatiotemporal scales applicable to improving drought estimation accuracy.

ECOSTRESS will meet these objectives by measuring the thermal infrared brightness temperatures (BT) of plants and using that information to derive their evapotranspiration (ET). These measurements will be made CONUS-wide and over key biomes around the world as well as in European and South Asian agricultural zones, and selected FLUXNET validation sites. The figure below shows the sites the ECOSTRESS will measure. The instrument is capable of measuring additional sites, provided the sufficient downlink capability is provided by the International Space Station.

https://ecostress.jpl.nasa.gov

https://directory.eoportal.org/web/eoportal/satellite-missions/i/iss-ecostress

 

[Funkworks]

GRACE-FO stands for “Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-on”.

This mission tracks Earth’s water movement across the planet, by monitoring changes in ice sheets and glaciers, underground water storage, the amount of water in large lakes and rivers, and changes in sea levels. This provides a unique view of Earth’s climate.

Spacecraft: a pair of satellites using microwave and laser ranging systems based on GPS technology,

https://gracefo.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/spacecraft/overview/

Intro to purpose:



Picture and artist's impression:

 

[Funkworks]

Don't mind me. Just coasting around the world, hopping from satellite to the next to see what up here. Writing things down helps me remember.



CubeRRT is a 6U CubeSat of size 20 cm x 30 cm x 10 cm.



To observe Earth's properties with microwave radiometry, man-made Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) must be detected and discarded from the Earth’s naturally fluctuating microwave signals.

This satellite was for demonstrating filtering in the 6 to 40 GHz range for future space-borne microwave radiometers.

The enabling technology is a digital FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array)-based spectrometer with a bandwidth of 1 GHz or more and capable of implementing advanced RFI mitigation algorithms such as the Kurtosis and cross-frequency methods.

Launched on 21 May 2018 with Antares 230 to the ISS and then deployed from the ISS on 13 July 2018. By October of 2018, CubeRRT had accomplished its mission goals of demonstrating real-time filtering of radio frequency interference aboard the satellite.



https://www.eoportal.org/satellite-missions/cuberrt#spacecraft

 

[Hobie1dog]

i love this thread. Thanks for putting all of the great videos up for us.

 

[Funkworks]

i love this thread. Thanks for putting all of the great videos up for us.

From now on, this thread is mostly an archive.

If I get to post about more satelllites, I’ll use the new thread on the new space subforum instead:

https://www.rocketryforum.com/threads/observing-the-earth-from-space.180433/