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Right on track: Aeolus reentry map
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By European Space Agency
Video: 00:06:50 The first of four satellites that make up ESA’s Cluster mission is coming safely back down to Earth, marking a brilliant end to this remarkable mission.
The satellite’s orbit was tweaked back in January to target a region as far as possible from populated regions. This ensures that any spacecraft parts that survive the reentry will fall over open ocean.
During 24 years in space, Cluster has sent back precious data on how the Sun interacts with Earth’s magnetic field, helping us better understand and forecast potentially dangerous space weather.
With this first ever targeted reentry, Cluster goes down in history for a different reason, taking ESA well beyond international space safety standards and helping ensure the long-term sustainability of space activities.
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By European Space Agency
On 8 September 2024, the first of four Cluster satellites will return home and burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere in an uncontrolled ‘targeted reentry’ over a remote area of the South Pacific Ocean.
In the nearly 70 years of spaceflight about 10 000 intact satellites and rocket bodies have reentered the atmosphere. Yet we still lack a clear view on what actually happens during a reentry.
An airborne observation experiment will now attempt to witness the ‘Salsa’ (Cluster 2) reentry. Scientists onboard a small plane will try to collect rare data on how and when a satellite breaks up, which can be used to make satellite reentries safer and more sustainable in the future.
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By European Space Agency
On 8 September 2024, the first of four satellites that make up ESA’s Cluster mission will reenter Earth’s atmosphere over the South Pacific Ocean Uninhabited Area.
This marks the end of the historic mission, over 24 years after it was sent into space to measure Earth’s magnetic environment. Though the remaining three satellites will also stop making scientific observations, discoveries using existing mission data are expected for years to come.
This ‘targeted reentry’ is the first of its kind. ESA’s efforts to ensure a clean end to the Cluster mission go beyond international standards, making the agency a world-leader in sustainable space exploration.
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By NASA
2 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
This summer between June 17 and July 2, NASA will fly aircraft over Baltimore, Philadelphia, parts of Virginia, and California to collect data on air pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions.
The campaign supports the NASA Student Airborne Research Program for undergraduate interns.
Two NASA aircraft, including the P-3 shown here, will be flying over Baltimore, Philadelphia, Virginia and California between June 17 and July 2, to collect data on air pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions. Credit: (NASA/ Zavaleta) The East Coast flights will take place from June 17-26. Researchers and students will fly multiple times each week in Dynamic Aviation’s King Air B200 aircraft at an altitude of 1,000 feet over Baltimore and Philadelphia as well as Norfolk, Hampton, Hopewell, and Richmond in Virginia. Meanwhile, a NASA P-3 aircraft based out of NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia will fly over the same East Coast locations to collect different measurements.
The West Coast flights will occur from June 29 – July 2. During the period, those same aircraft will conduct similar operations over Los Angeles, Imperial Valley, and Tulare Basin in California.
The research aircraft will fly at lower altitudes than most commercial planes and will conduct maneuvers including vertical spirals from 1,000 to 10,000 feet, circling over power plants, landfills, and urban areas. They will also occasionally conduct “missed approaches” at local airports, where the aircraft will perform a low-level flyby over a runway to collect samples close to the surface.
The aircraft carry instruments that will collect data on a range of greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide and methane, as well as air pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide, formaldehyde, and ozone. One purpose of this campaign is to validate space-based measurements observed by the TEMPO (Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution) mission. Launched on a commercial satellite in April 2023, the TEMPO instrument provides hourly daytime measurements of air pollutants across the United States, northern Mexico, and southern Canada.
“The goal is that this data we collect will feed into policy decisions that affect air quality and climate in the region,” said Glenn Wolfe, a research scientist and the principal investigator for the campaign at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
The B-200 aircraft is owned by Dynamics Aviation, an aircraft company contracted by NASA.
For more information about Student Airborne Research Program, visit:
https://science.nasa.gov/earth-science/early-career-opportunities/student-airborne-research-program/
By Tayler Gilmore
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
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Last Updated Jun 14, 2024 EditorJennifer R. MarderContactJeremy EggersLocationGoddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
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By NASA
An engineering geologist measures water depth at an agricultural well in a field north of Sacramento, California. Groundwater is an important source of water for irrigation in the state’s Central Valley, especially during times of drought, and the GRACE missions provide data that helps track the resource.Kelly M. Grow/California Department of Water Resources The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment-Continuity mission will extend a decades-long record of following shifting water masses using gravity measurements.
NASA and the German Space Agency at DLR (German Aerospace Center) have agreed to jointly build, launch, and operate a pair of spacecraft that will yield insights into how Earth’s water, ice, and land masses are shifting by measuring monthly changes in the planet’s gravity field. Tracking large-scale mass changes – showing when and where water moves within and between the atmosphere, oceans, underground aquifers, and ice sheets – provides a view into Earth’s water cycle, including changes in response to drivers like climate change.
With the international agreement signed in late 2023, the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment-Continuity (GRACE-C) mission will extend a nearly 25-year legacy that began with the 2002 launch of the GRACE mission. The GRACE-Follow On (GRACE-FO) mission succeeded GRACE in 2018. GRACE-C is targeting a launch no earlier than 2028.
The data from the GRACE missions is considered key information in characterizing Earth’s climate. Those measurements, together with other information and computer models, are regularly used for drought assessment and forecasting, water-use planning for agriculture, and understanding the drivers of sea level rise, such as how much ice the world’s ice sheets are losing.
“GRACE-C represents an international and collaborative effort to observe and study one of our planet’s most precious resources,” said Nicola Fox, associate administrator for science at NASA in Washington. “From our coastlines to our kitchen tables, there is no aspect of our planet that is not impacted by changes in the water cycle. The partnership between NASA and the German Aerospace Center will serve a critical role in preparing for the challenges we face today and tomorrow.”
Explore the GRACE-FO mission in NASA's Eyes on the Earth Engineers and scientists are finalizing design details for the instruments and satellites, and then teams will start work on fabricating and building. The mission will be composed of a pair of identical satellites flying one behind the other, roughly 60 to 190 miles (100 to 300 kilometers) apart, in a polar orbit. The spacecraft will fly at an altitude of roughly 300 miles (500 kilometers). Together they will monitor monthly changes to the distribution of water on Earth from variations in the planet’s gravity field.
Following the Water
The pull of gravity varies naturally from place to place on Earth depending on the mass distribution near the surface. For instance, large shifts in underground water storage (groundwater) or losses from ice sheets move a great amount of mass around, which can in turn shift the planet’s gravity field on weekly to monthly time scales.
Researchers can gauge those changes by measuring very small changes in the distance between the two GRACE-C satellites. As the lead spacecraft flies over an area with relatively more mass – like a spot with more groundwater than its surroundings – the slight increase in Earth’s gravity field pulls the satellite forward, increasing its distance from the trailing spacecraft. Capable of measuring distance changes 100 times smaller than the thickness of a human hair, a laser ranging interferometer (LRI) instrument continually measures the distance between the two spacecraft.
The satellite systems and orbit for GRACE-C will be similar to those of GRACE-FO, ensuring the continuity of measurements between the two missions.
“GRACE-C will build on decades of observations of the global movement of water and changes in water resources. This is critical to informing predictions of future trends in our climate and to assess food and water security,” said Frank Webb, GRACE-C project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “The mission is an example of the commitment that NASA and our German partners share for studying the Earth and helping society better prepare for a warming world.”
GRACE-C, previously known as the Mass Change mission, addresses one of the key goals outlined in the 2017 Decadal Survey for Earth Science conducted by the U.S. National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine: to better understand the planet’s global water cycle through large-scale changes in Earth’s mass.
“Together with NASA, we are now continuing along the GRACE route in Earth observation, thereby strengthening our international cooperation in space-based research,” said Walther Pelzer, a member of the DLR executive board and director general of the German Space Agency at DLR. “The USA and Germany have been working closely together for a long time on climate and environmental research from space. The trust that our U.S. partners are placing in German space expertise for these missions by commissioning the satellite construction and the delivery of important parts of the GRACE-C instrumentation and mission control is also a sign of Germany’s capabilities as a prime location for spaceflight.”
The mission will be part of NASA’s Earth System Observatory (ESO), a set of Earth-focused missions that will provide data to guide efforts related to climate change, natural hazard mitigation, wildfire management, and food security. When combined, ESO mission data will create a holistic view of Earth from the planet’s atmosphere to its bedrock.
More About the Mission
JPL manages the GRACE-C mission for NASA and will procure the two spacecraft from Airbus Defence and Space, the company that built the satellites for the GRACE and GRACE-FO missions. Development and construction of the LRI system will be led by JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena. The German contributions are funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The German Space Agency at DLR will manage the German contributions to GRACE-C, providing the LRI optics subsystems; mission operations; telemetry, tracking, and command; the ground data system; the laser retroreflectors to help with satellite positioning; the launch vehicle; and launch services.
To learn more about GRACE-FO, visit:
https://gracefo.jpl.nasa.gov/
News Media Contacts
Jane J. Lee / Andrew Wang
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-0307 / 626-379-6874
jane.j.lee@jpl.nasa.gov / andrew.wang@jpl.nasa.gov
2024-030
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Last Updated Mar 19, 2024 Related Terms
Water on Earth Earth GRACE (Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment) GRACE-FO (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-on) Jet Propulsion Laboratory Explore More
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