Superstorm93 Posted September 17, 2014 Share Posted September 17, 2014 The long-awaited project will finally launch on Saturday (weather permitting) to the ISS where the next generation of Scatterometers will be installed. The primary goal of the Rapid Scatterometer (RapidScat) is to provide a gap-filler ocean vector winds measurement capability to mitigate the loss of the NASA Quick Scatterometer (QuikSCAT). Scatterometers are radar instruments that can measure near-surface wind speed and direction over the ocean, and have proved to be extremely valuable for weather forecasting, including hurricane monitoring, and for monitoring large-scale changes in the Earth’s climate, such as El Niño. The RapidScat instrument will be mounted on the International Space Station (ISS) and will provide wind measurements that will enhance the international scatterometer constellation, provide unique cross-calibration capabilities to extend the climate data record initiated by the QuikSCAT satellite. In addition, because of the unique orbit characteristics of the ISS, RapidScat will enable the first measurements of the systematic diurnal changes of winds over the ocean. http://eospso.gsfc.nasa.gov/missions/iss-rapid-scatterometer http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/fact_sheets/issrapidscat_factsheet.pdf http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-309 http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/iss-rapidscat/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patrick05 Posted September 17, 2014 Share Posted September 17, 2014 OSCAT has ceased operations since April of this year as well so this is a welcomed news! Is METOP the only scatterometer left up there? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Superstorm93 Posted October 1, 2014 Author Share Posted October 1, 2014 Dr. Masters entry on RapidScat http://classic.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/article.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.