Earth ID: 4070

NASA Earth Observing Fleet including Landsat 8

Visualizations by Greg Shirah Released on June 26, 2013

There is a newer version of this story located here: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/5061

A newer version of this visualization can be found here.

This animation shows the orbits of NASA's current (as of May 2013) fleet of Earth remote sensing observatories. The satellites include components of the A-Train (Aqua, Aura, CloudSat, CALIPSO), two satellites launched in 2011 (Aquarius, Suomi NPP), and nine others (ACRIMSAT, SORCE, GRACE, Jason 1 and 2, Landsat 7, Landsat 8, QuikSCAT, TRMM, and EO-1). These satellites measure tropical rainfall, solar irradiance, clouds, sea surface height, ocean salinity, and other aspects of the global environment. Together, they provide a picture of the Earth as a system.

This is an update of visualization #3725. It was created for display on the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS) hyperwall, a 5 x 3 array of high-definition displays with a total pixel resolution of 6840 x 2304. The orbits are based on orbital elements with epochs in April of 2013. The visualization spans twenty-nine hours, from 04:10 UT on April 14, 2013 to 09:24 UT on Aril 15, 2013.

Newer Versions

Visualization Credits

Greg Shirah (NASA/GSFC): Lead Animator
Ernie Wright (USRA): Animator
Alex Kekesi (Global Science and Technology, Inc.): Animator
Matthew R. Radcliff (USRA): Producer

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

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Missions:
Aquarius
Aura
CALIPSO
Cloudsat
Landsat
LDCM: Landsat Data Continuity Mission
NPP
Terra

Data Used:

CelesTrak Spacecraft Orbit Ephemeris

Ephemeris

http://celestrak.com

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Terra and Aqua/MODIS/Blue Marble: Next Generation also referred to as: BMNG

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/BlueMarble/

Credit:
The Blue Marble data is courtesy of Reto Stockli (NASA/GSFC).

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GEOS-5 Atmospheric Model on the Cubed-Sphere also referred to as: GEOS-5 Cubed-Sphere

Model - NASA GMAO

The model is the GEOS-5 atmospheric model on the cubed-sphere, run at 14-km global resolution for 30-days. GEOS-5 is described here http://gmao.gsfc.nasa.gov/systems/geos5/ and the cubed-sphere work is described here http://sivo.gsfc.nasa.gov/cubedsphere_overview.html.

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Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details nor the data sets themselves on our site.

This item is part of these series:
Hyperwall
LDCM

Keywords:
DLESE >> Atmospheric science
SVS >> HDTV
SVS >> Landsat
SVS >> Simulation
SVS >> Spacecraft
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Atmosphere
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Atmosphere >> Clouds
SVS >> Orbit
SVS >> Hyperwall
SVS >> Aquarius
SVS >> Calipso
SVS >> Cloudsat
SVS >> Aura
SVS >> GRACE
SVS >> NPP
SVS >> LDCM
SVS >> Earth >> Satellites >> Earth Observing Fleet
NASA Science >> Earth

GCMD keywords can be found on the Internet with the following citation: Olsen, L.M., G. Major, K. Shein, J. Scialdone, S. Ritz, T. Stevens, M. Morahan, A. Aleman, R. Vogel, S. Leicester, H. Weir, M. Meaux, S. Grebas, C.Solomon, M. Holland, T. Northcutt, R. A. Restrepo, R. Bilodeau, 2013. NASA/Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Earth Science Keywords. Version 8.0.0.0.0