NASA Earth Observing System (EOS)

NASA has conducted scientific observation of the Earth from space since its beginnings as an agency. In the 1970s, NASA launched the first civilian land imaging satellites; today the Landsat satellites built by NASA and operated by the U.S. Geological Survey continue the long-term record of global land cover change, providing context and calibration for the commercial remote sensing industry. NASA research based on the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite confirmed the causes of Antarctic ozone depletion, and NASA continues a three-decade record of global ozone concentrations via the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer.
In 1978, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory revolutionized oceanography with the launch of the short-lived Seasat, the first Earth-orbiting satellite designed for remote sensing of the Earth’s oceans. Seasat included experimental passive and active instruments to measure ocean surface wind speed and direction, sea surface temperature, cloud, land and water features, the global ocean surface wave field and polar sea ice conditions, and spacecraft height above the ocean surface.
Many later Earth-orbiting instruments owe their legacy to the Seasat mission. These include the U.S./France TOPEX/Poseidon radar altimeter for measuring sea level and ocean circulation, and active scatterometer missions, such as QuikSCAT, to measure winds at the ocean surface globally. In the 1990s, NASA began deployment of the first phase of the Earth Observing System (EOS) — the world’s first capability to simultaneously view the interactions of all the major components of the Earth system (land, oceans, atmosphere, ice,and life). EOS Terra was launched in December 1999 to start the series that continued with the launch of Aqua in May 2002. In June 2004, NASA’s Earth Science Enterprise will launch the EOS Aura atmospheric chemistry satellite, completing the EOS first series.
The NPP mission forms the “bridge” for many climate-related measurements between EOS and NPOESS. Other missions are planned to provide similar continuity for EOS measurements not covered by NPP, such as ocean surface topography and land cover change. Many of these will also be conducted in partnership with NPOESS agencies. Currently, NASA has 18 research satellites in orbit observing various components of the Earth’s system. The EOS Data and Information System distributes tens of millions of data products each year in response to millions of user requests.
Information on NASA’s Earth Science Enterprise is available at http://earth.nasa.gov/. A wide range of Earth imagery from NASA satellites can be viewed at http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/.

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