Current Missions - Quick Scatterometer

by JPL

More articles in Satellites
Spacecraft
Launch: June 19, 1999

Mass: 970 kilograms (2,140 pounds) total, consisting of 870-kilogram (1,914-pound) satellite (including radar instrument) and 76 kilograms (167 pounds) of thruster propellant

Science instruments: Scatterometer
Overview

The Quick Scatterometer, or "QuikScat," is a rapidly developed mission that replaced the capability of the NASA Scatterometer (NSCAT) instrument on Japan’s Midori satellite (previously known as the Advanced Earth Observation Satellite (ADEOS)), which lost power in 1997 nine months after launch in September 1996.

Built in record time in just 12 months, the ocean-observing satellite was launched June 19, 1999, on a Titan II rocket from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base. It circles Earth at an altitude of 800 kilometers (500 miles) once every 101 minutes, passing close to Earth’s north and south poles. The scatterometer instrument it carries is known as Seawinds.

Scatterometers operate by sending radar pulses to the ocean surface and measuring the "backscattered" or echoed radar pulses bounced back to the satellite. The instrument senses ripples caused by winds near the ocean’s surface, from which scientists can compute the winds’ speed and direction. The instruments can acquire hundreds of times more observations of surface wind velocity each day than can ships and buoys.

The mission is managed by JPL, which also built the Seawinds radar instrument. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center managed development of the satellite, designed and built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp.