One mission is now the make-or-break future for NASA Earth science
With the launch of JPSS-1 coming up this year, everything that NASA Earth science stands for hinges on its success.
“There is, then, no water that is wholly of the Pacific, or wholly of the Atlantic, or of the Indian or the Antarctic. The surf that we find exhilarating at Virginia Beach or at La Jolla today may have lapped at the base of antarctic icebergs or sparkled in the Mediterranean sun, years ago, before it moved through dark and unseen waterways to the place we find it now. It is by the deep, hidden currents that the oceans are made one.” -Rachel Carson
When it comes to viewing anything in space that changes — whether it’s a distant galaxy, star, or even the Sun or Earth in our own backyard — the goal is to measure it as frequently and comprehensively as possible. For the Earth, that means imaging the planet at high resolution, with as many instruments as we can, covering the entire globe in as little time as possible, while in close orbit around our planet. The greatest Earth-monitoring satellite of all time, the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS-1), is scheduled to launch in just a few months, and will give us climate and weather modeling data that’s leaps and bounds better than anything we’ve ever had. It also has to…
