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Aquarius: A Mission to Monitor Sea Surface Salinity from SpaceAquarius is a combination radiometer and scatterometer (radar) operating at L-band (1.413 GHz for the radiometer and 1.26 GHz for the scatterometer). The primary instrument for measuring salinity is the radiometer. The scatterometer will provide a correction for surface roughness (waves) which is one of the largest potential sources of error in the retrieval. Unique features of the sensor are the large reflector (2.5 meter offset fed reflector with three feeds), polarimetric operation, and the tight thermal control. The three feeds produce three beams arranged to image in pushbroom fashion looking to the side of the orbit away from the sun to avoid sunglint. Polarimetric operation is included to assist in correcting for Faraday rotation which can be important at L-band. The tight thermal control is necessary to meet stability requirements (less than 0.12K drift over 7 days) which have been imposed to assist in meeting the science requirements for the retrieval of surface salinity (0.2 psu). The sensor will be in a sun-synchronous orbit at about 650 km with equatorial crossings of 6ad6pm (ascending at 6 pm). The objective is to monitor the seasonal and interannual variation of the large scale features of the surface salinity field in the open ocean. To accomplish this, the measurement goals are a spatial resolution of 100 km and retrieval accuracy of 0.2 psu globally on a monthly basis. Aquarius is being developed by NASA and is a partnership between JPL and the Goddard Space Flight Center. The SAC-D mission is being developed by CONAE and will include the spacecraft and several additional instruments, including visible and infrared cameras and a microwave radiometer to monitor rain and wind velocity over the oceans, and sea ice.
Document ID
20080045454
Acquisition Source
Goddard Space Flight Center
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
LeVine, D. M.
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Lagerloef, G. S. E.
(Earth and Space Research Seattle, WA, United States)
Pellerano, F.
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Yueh, S.
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Colomb, R.
(National Commission of Space Activities Buenos Aires, Argentina)
Date Acquired
August 24, 2013
Publication Date
February 24, 2006
Subject Category
Oceanography
Meeting Information
Meeting: SMOS Workshop
Location: Lyngby
Country: Denmark
Start Date: May 15, 2006
End Date: May 17, 2006
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other

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