Supriya Ghosh (Editor)

CALIPSO

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Mission type
  
Earth observation

COSPAR ID
  
2006-016A

Mission duration
  
ongoing

Speed on orbit
  
7.51 km/s

Inclination
  
98.2176°

Operator
  
NASA / CNES

SATCAT no.
  
29108

Launch date
  
28 April 2006

Period
  
1.6 hours

Cost
  
223 million USD


Website
  
www-calipso.larc.nasa.gov

Manufacturer
  
Cannes Mandelieu Space Center

Similar
  
CloudSat, Aqua, Aura, Parasol, Terra

CALIPSO is a joint NASA (USA) and CNES (France) environmental satellite, built in the Cannes Mandelieu Space Center, which was launched atop a Delta II rocket on April 28, 2006. Its name stands for Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations.

Contents

CALIPSO Calipso Calipso

Passive and active remote sensing Instruments on board the CALIPSO satellite monitor aerosols and clouds 24 hours a day. CALIPSO is part of the "A Train", flying in formation with several other satellites (Aqua, Aura and CloudSat).

CALIPSO NASA CALIPSO Makes Successful Switch to Backup Laser Keeping

Calipso


Mission

Three instruments:

CALIPSO Calipso GLOBEgov

  • Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) - a lidar that provides high-resolution vertical profiles of aerosols and clouds.
  • Wide Field Camera (WFC) - a modified version of the commercial off-the-shelf Ball Aerospace CT-633 star tracker camera. It was selected to match band 1 of the MODIS instrument on the Aqua satellite.
  • Imaging Infrared Radiometer (IIR) - used to detect cirrus cloud emissivity and particle size. The CALIOP laser beam is aligned with the center of the IIR image to optimize joint CALIOP/IIR observations.

    • CALIPSO CALIPSO A Global Perspective of Clouds and Aerosols from Space

    In February 2009, CALIPSO switched over to the redundant laser as scheduled. The primary laser achieved its mission goal of three years of successful operation, and the redundant laser has been performing beyond expectations.

    The CALIPSO mission was granted extended mission status in June 2009.

    References

    CALIPSO Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA