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Aqua
Aqua, Latin for water, is a NASA Earth Science satellite mission named for the large amount of information that the mission is collecting about the Earth's water cycle, including evaporation from the oceans, water vapor in the atmosphere, clouds, precipitation, soil moisture, sea ice, land ice, and snow cover on the land and ice. Additional variables also being measured by Aqua include radiative energy fluxes, aerosols, vegetation cover on the land, phytoplankton and dissolved organic matter in the oceans, and air, land, and water temperatures.
The Aqua mission is a part of the NASA-centered international Earth Observing System (EOS). Aqua was formerly named EOS PM, signifying its afternoon equatorial crossing time.
Aqua was launched on May 4, 2002, and has six Earth-observing instruments on board, collecting a variety of global datasets. Aqua was originally developed for a six-year design life but has now far exceeded that original goal.
Aqua continues collecting and transmitting high-quality data from four of its six instruments:
- Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS)
- Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU)
- Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES)
- Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)
- Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS (AMSR-E), suffered a major anomaly in October 2011 and ceased its high-quality data transmission at that time. It was later turned back on and transmitted reduced quality data important for intercalibration purposes before being powered off in March 2016.
- Humidity Sounder for Brazil (HSB), collected approximately nine months of high quality data but failed in February 2003.
Aqua is currently in 'free-drift'
What is its past, current and future altitude and equator crossing time?
Drag your cursor over the graph below to find out.
Due to fuel limitations, Aqua completed the last of its drag makeup maneuvers in December 2021 and is now in a free-drift mode, slowly descending below the A-Train and drifting to later equatorial crossing times, and lower altitudes. Based on current data, Aqua data collection is projected to end in early Fall 2027, with spacecraft passivation to follow soon thereafter.
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