2002 EARTH SCIENCE VIDEOTAPES |
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Tape Title | Record ID | Date Produced | TRT: |
Synopsis |
| AFTERNOON LIGHT: THE AQUA ERA BEGINS | G02-017 | 04/18/02 | 00:38:24 | In the late 1990s, NASA began launching a new generation of research spacecraft specifically designed to study the Earth so that we can better understand and protect our home planet. Called Aqua, the latest addition to NASA's fleet meets a significant milestone in the agency's pursuit to field a constellation of integrated observatories. One of Aqua's greatest strengths is its ability to gather congruent data with a suite of interrelated instruments. By making observations of specific planetary features and events simultaneously with different instruments, experts can begin to approach scientific questions in terms of "systems" as opposed to independent inquiries. Aqua is the result of international partnerships. With its successful deployment, the Earth science community will have a major new suite of tools for examining important areas of research such as climate change, weather, the water cycle, and much more. This high-tech, space-based research observatory is a sibling to another vehicle called Terra, an Earth science satellite launched in December 1999. While embodying significant differences, as siblings they also share many similarities. Both satellites carry several similar instruments, in addition to their own separate suites of advanced hardware. Both satellites were designed to study Earth in systemic ways, with integrated data collection and analysis cornerstones of their design intentions. The satellites follow different but related orbits. Terra makes its observational transits in the morning, while Aqua takes its readings in the afternoon. Satellites like Aqua will help us to better understand and protect our home planet while providing science that will improve life here.
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TAPE CONTENTS: |
ITEM (1): Water Works: The AQUA Project (Reporter Package) - Climate is to weather what families are to relatives: they both describe complex interactions among various component parts.This analogy extends to modern strategies for studying the Earth, too. Instead of making discrete, independent measurements about isolated places around the globe, experts are fielding closely integrated constellations of satellites and instrumentation, designed to work in concert while looking at vast stretches of the planet. NASA's Aqua is the latest example of this effort. It's designed to explore the Earth in terms of interrelated systems, leveraging simultaneous collection of data about related aspects of the planet, so we can better understand and protect our home planet.
Phil Sabelhaus - EOS Aqua Project Manager: "In terms of understanding climate, I think Aqua is going to take us a long way farther in understanding climate…The satellite itself is very, very sophisticated."
Very sophisticated, indeed. The satellite houses six advanced instruments, each designed to gather data about the Earth in ways that can be used independently or in conjunction with other observations. The satellite will also carry several major advancements in Earth observing technology. An instrument called AIRS will work with two other devices to collect three-dimensional atmospheric information about temperature and moisture to a degree never seen before. And as the name of the satellite implies, the Aqua program hopes to make significant contributions to our understanding of the global water cycle, information vital to life here.
Claire Parkinson - Aqua Project Scientist: "If we identify changes in the water cycle, it probably means there are changes elsewhere as well."
Detailed examinations of these kinds of large-scale systems describe the essence of Aqua's mission. Research into climate change, global plant productivity, the health of the oceans, and much more depend on separate but cross-calibrated measurements and analysis, since each part of our home planet is fundamentally interconnected to all the others.
Claire Parkinson - Aqua Project Scientist: "The system is so intertwined that changes in one portion probably suggest that there's changes in others."
NASA and its international partners are counting on this powerful observatory to help researchers explore not only how the Earth lives and breathes, but also how the people of the world can best care for the only planet in the solar system known to harbor life.
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| ITEM (2): NASA's New Observatory Looks at Earth (Reporters Package) - In human terms, water means life. But to Earth scientists around the world, Aqua means top-notch science, and with the exclamation mark of a Delta rocket blazing a trail, NASA's latest Earth observing satellite takes its place on orbit. Home to a suite of powerful instruments for gathering fundamental information about interrelated planetary processes like climate change and the water cycle, Aqua is part of NASA's larger Earth Science Enterprise, a program dedicated to studying our home planet from space.
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ITEM (3): AQUA: THE SCIENCE OF WATER AND MUCH MORE
A Grand Observatory For Studying Our Home - With the launch of the Aqua spacecraft NASA's Earth Science Enterprise gains a powerful suite of tools. Flying at an altitude of 438 miles (705 km), the vehicle carries six advanced instruments designed to study various Earth processes. As part of the mission design, these instruments are specifically tailored to work together as well as separately--in essence embodying the philosophy that if the Earth's processes function in systemic, interrelated ways, the best way to study the planet is with sensors that can correlate their findings. In fact, this strategy goes beyond the bounds of the Aqua platform alone. As only the latest launch in a series of Earth observing vehicles, Aqua's instrumentation and data collection efforts are all part of a larger effort to study the Earth in systemic terms.
Earth Science Present, Earth Science Future - It used to be that scientists pursued specific questions with carefully designed experiments and observations in an effort to uncover a specific answer. But in many fields this paradigm is changing, perhaps nowhere more apparent than in the study of the Earth with remote sensing techniques. More often than ever before experts are designing their explorations of the natural world in ways that utilize systems oriented approaches. The Aqua satellite perfectly describes this trend. Beyond their planned utility as hardware designed to work together, the six instruments housed by Aqua will also collect information that can be used in conjunction with data gathered by other spacecraft in the Earth Observing fleet. But what of Aqua itself? The satellite will weigh 6,468 lbs. (2,934 kg) at launch, fully fueled. It will be lifted into space on a two-stage Delta II 7920-10L rocket, equipped with 9 external solid rocket motors. TRW built Aqua's principal "bus" or spacecraft body. This is the same basic bus that will be used for the used for the upcoming Aura mission. Standardization of spaceflight hardware enables projects with similar and related goals to proceed through their development and fabrication cycles with comparatively streamlined production requirements. Satellite designers built Aqua to function on orbit for a minimum of six years.
Launch And Deployment - Originally Aqua had a different name. On the drawing boards, NASA referred to it as the EOS-PM platform, an acronym describing its organizational roots and its mission goals. EOS stands for Earth Observing System, a program presently collecting data about our living planet from a growing fleet of satellites on orbit. PM indicates that this new satellite will make measurements in the afternoon, around 1:30. (On the opposite side of the planet, however, it will make measurements at 1:30 in the morning.) This name is closely related to the Terra satellite's former name. Originally called the EOS-AM platform, Terra's mission goals are related to Aqua, but as the acronym suggests it collects data about the Earth in the morning--close to 10:30. (As you'd expect, Terra will also make nighttime observations at 10:30 on the Earth's opposite sides.)
A New Platform For Old Questions - Aqua will make measurements of the Earth at the same time, all the time. This is because the satellite will orbit the planet on a nearly polar route, passing over different points on the ground at approximately 1:30 pm and 1:30 am. By maintaining a consistent time for taking readings, the integrated suite of sensors on Aqua will facilitate sophisticated measurements of planetary processes that until now have been challenging to collect and calibrate. Working in concert or independently, Aqua's scientific hardware will be used to study climate change, vegetation, water vapor in the atmosphere, clouds, precipitation, soil moisture, sea ice, land ice, snow cover and more. It's a broadly defined mission overall, specifically composed of both narrowly and widely tailored objectives. The processes targeted for study directly affect life on Earth; they describe the tangible world: rainfall that waters crops, snow and ice that reflect heat back into space, and changes in vegetation that describe how our planet's biosphere may be shifting due to human induced climate pressures.
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ITEM (4): FLIGHT HARDWARE: AQUA'S RESEARCH PAYLOAD
MODIS - Aqua will house a sensor that's designed specifically to capture the subtleties of color. It's called MODIS, the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer. This instrument will measure visible and infrared light in 36 distinct bands; it will view the world in 36 colors, in other words. MODIS will not be helpless at night, either. The dramatic reduction in visible light when the planet turns away from the Sun does not curtail the instrument's ability to collect data of other wavelengths. These measurements will be used to generate scientific products about land surface cover, vegetation, phytoplankton in the oceans, fires on land, sea ice cover, snow cover on land, and properties of clouds and aerosols in the atmosphere.
CERES - CERES stands for Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System. As the name suggests, the instrument looks at clouds and the Earth's radiation balance. More specifically, CERES studies how much how much heat is emitted and reflected by the Earth on a broad scale. CERES scientists will also deliver detailed information about clouds by analyzing the data in concert with the data from the MODIS instrument. By studying how clouds function in relation to the larger planet, scientists can develop new predictive models about weather systems and how the Earth maintains its delicate temperature balance.
AMSR-E - The water cycle is an extremely complex process, and a better understanding of its subtleties can provide valuable information to scientists. One of the key instruments on the Aqua satellite to explore these questions and more is AMSR-E, the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for the Earth Observing System. By collecting reflected radiation in the microwave range of the spectrum, AMSR-E will study precipitation, near-surface wind speeds, sea surface temperature, soil moisture, snow cover, and more. Compared to the other instruments onboard Aqua, AMSR-E is also distinctive for its appearance. Rising like a golden sail above the bow of the vehicle, the instrument spins 40 times a minute. It will gather data from an 867-mile (1445 km) swath of the planet as it orbits
HSB - The Humidity Sounder for Brazil (HSB) is Brazil's latest foray into space. Charged with the task of deriving water vapor readings in the lower atmosphere, this instrument will be used largely to provide humidity measurements beneath overcast conditions and help make readings by its collaborating instrument AIRS more accurate. HSB will be able to make humidity measurements even if clouds or thick haze heavily covers the sky beneath it. HSB measurements will also be used to measure the intensity of rain over given areas, as well as provide supplemental information about clouds, both valuable on an orbiting observatory designed to study the Earth's climate.
AMSU - The two completely separate sensor units that make up AMSU, the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit, collect data in 15 spectral bands. That means its sensors read information by measuring light reflected from observed surface features in 15 distinct "colors", although these microwave "colors" are not visible to the human eye. Scientists will treat the data collected by the two AMSU units as if they came from a single piece of hardware. AMSU will make measurements of atmospheric temperature, with particular attention paid to the stratosphere (the upper atmosphere), and a secondary goal of providing temperature observations in the troposphere (the lower atmosphere). When it looks at lower altitude parts of the sky, AMSU will be able to filter out data signatures from low lying clouds. The instrument sees the Earth in a swath of 1014 miles (1690 km).
AIRS: A New Satellite, A New Instrument - While the other five instruments on Aqua are all highly sophisticated pieces of technology, the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder, or AIRS, breaks new ground. It's designed to collect data about the Earth using 2378 distinct spectral channels in the infrared range, plus four more channels in the visible and near-infrared part of the spectrum. Where AIRS makes its most compelling statement of purpose is in its synergy with two other instruments onboard Aqua. By using microwave data from AMSU and HSB to take into account the effects of clouds, AIRS will be able to make unprecedented measurements of temperature through vertical columns of the atmosphere, as well as making temperature measurement for the planet's surface. By fusing data about water vapor, temperature, and clouds, powerful new tools become available for research and analysis into the Earth's climate at a systemic, process-oriented level.
The AIRS Trio: Measuring More Than Air Temperature - This is the most advanced atmospheric sounding system ever put into space. Scientists are eager to put it to the test. In this visualization we get a better sense of what the trio will be trying to see. We're looking at a simulated three-dimensional section of the atmosphere, using data from NASA''s advanced NSIPP (NASA's Seasonal to Interannual Prediction Project) climate model to illustrate the point. NSIPP simulates Earth's climate inside a powerful supercomputer, enabling experts to conduct virtual "experiments" on the natural world. By looking through the total volume of atmosphere, AIRS, AMSU, and HSB are able to quantify water vapor, cloud density, and temperature simultaneously. This co-incident data acquisition is vital if experts are to better understand their interrelationship.
The visualization also emphasizes the three-dimensionality of the measurements themselves. Just as the atmosphere is not a flat component of the total planet, neither are its features. They vary over distance: as you climb a mountain, the air not only gets colder but also drier. With the AIRS trio, experts can compile accurate profiles of vast regions of the atmosphere.
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| ITEM (5): FLYING LABORATORY: AQUA'S SCIENCE GOALS
How Clouds Shield And Insulate The Earth - A dynamic fabric of suspended water floats above the Earth: clouds. A portion of the sunlight that reaches the planet bounces off the tops of clouds and gets reflected back into space. Most of the rest reaches the Earth, warming it and powering the systems of life all around us. But after sunlight hits the surface, much of that energy then radiates back into the sky. Clouds floating above act as a blanket, trapping energy in the form of valuable heat, helping to maintain a regular temperature range for the Earth. These images show huge regions of the Earth mottled by clouds. The pictures come from data collected by one of the GOES (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite) satellites managed by NOAA (National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administrations). A number of instruments on the Aqua satellite will study clouds and how they interact with the rest of the world.
Water Vapor And Climate Change - There is no more important greenhouse gas than water vapor. As one of the fundamental parts of Earth's atmosphere, water vapor affects global warming in both positive and negative terms, and offers a trail for scientists to follow towards a better understanding about how the planet functions as a whole. It's also one of the principal aspects of the Earth's climate targeted for study by the Aqua satellite. By applying integrated analytic tools to the study of climate and climate change, experts hope to learn more specifically how water vapor and other greenhouse gasses move and function throughout the atmosphere.
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ITEM (6): The Water Cycle - Water falling from summer storm clouds onto a field of wheat today will someday fall again somewhere else. This is the essence of the water cycle. The first step in the cycle is evaporation. Heated by sunlight, liquid water turns to vapor and enters the atmosphere. Another source of atmospheric water vapor is the respiratory process of plants. Vapor leaves plants through tiny pores called stomata. This process is called transpiration. As moist air ascends into the atmosphere and encounters lower atmospheric pressure, the invisible water vapor transforms back into liquid water, and we see the next phase in the water cycle: condensation. Droplets of water coalesce from traces of vapor, and as they gain size by joining with other droplets, they yield the next part of the water cycle. This is called precipitation. The cycle is endless. As it's name suggests, the Aqua project will be intensely involved in studying the water cycle in its many forms.
Evaporation - Depending on total ambient temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, and water temperature, some molecules of water are almost always passing from liquid to gaseous state at the surface. This is called evaporation. Evaporation is what puts moisture into the air, pulling water off the surface of lakes and streams and topsoil. Not only does water vapor enter the atmosphere, but also evaporating water pulls heat away from the surface. That heat will get redistributed to a different part of the atmosphere when the recently liberated water vapor re-condenses.
Transpiration - Related to evaporation, this is the respiratory equivalent of breathing in plants. Transpiration is how plants lose water to the surrounding air. While some water directly evaporates through the walls of cells on the surface of plants, the majority of water lost happens through intercellular structures called stomata. These are like tiny pores. Transpiration helps pull nutrients from plant roots up to leaves. It's a natural process that's heavily influenced by ambient temperature, humidity, and other factors. Additionally, transpiration also helps properly circulate carbon dioxide and oxygen, diffusing the first into plant cells for growth, and carrying the second away from cells as waste gas.
Condensation - The process that describes the change in physical state of a gas to a liquid is called condensation. Generally this is a phenomenon brought about by either of two processes: cooling of air to its dewpoint, or the addition of enough water vapor to bring the air to the point of saturation. But as that moisture either reaches high enough altitudes so that the air containing it is chilled by lower temperatures found there, or affected by increasing humidity from dynamic meteorological conditions, it condenses. The water molecules start moving more slowly, and the state of matter begins to change, as water molecules start hooking up. Gas becomes a liquid. Condensation can take many forms without necessarily falling from the sky. Dew, fog, mist, and clouds are all examples of condensed water.
Precipitation - Simply speaking, precipitation is a function of water changing its material state from vapor to a liquid or a solid. But more specifically, two fundamental steps must take place for water to fall from the sky. The first is that basic precipitation components must develop. These include ice crystals that form around various minute particles in the atmosphere such as dust or salts. The second step is for those ice crystals or condensed droplets to grow. Because of their increasing size, larger droplets or ice crystals are more apt to collide with other particles of water, and thus more likely to fall or "precipitate" out of a cloud.
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| ITEM (7): Monitoring Fire From Space (G01-061) - MODIS will collect information about the Earth in 36 different spectral bands, or colors. By doing so, it will be able to determine where hot spots or active fires are on the ground, thus enabling fire managers to better cope with potentially dangerous or destructive scenarios. The instrument will be able to "see through" clouds and smoke, helping officials keep track of what's changing on the ground even when it's difficult to see by conventional means. These shots, taken by the Terra MODIS instrument from August 13-18, 2001, show the progress and containment of a wildfire in California.
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| ITEM (8): Changes In Polar Ice Concentrations - Of the many jobs assigned to Aqua, looking at changing sea ice conditions is one of the most cognitively tangible. The following visualization, based on data from other satellites, helps illustrate why. By using data collected from 1978 to 1998, scientists have been able to stitch together a quality-controlled record of sea ice around the poles. In these visualizations we start by looking at displays of average ice concentrations in March, the annual maximum. As the sequence progresses, we see the quantity of ice diminish as the calendar heads towards September, the annual minimum. The cycle oscillates between maximum and minimum as the calendar advances, ice building up around the poles in winter and receding as summer approaches.
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| ITEM (9): The Essential Blanket of Ice (G00-016) - The polar caps not only hold much of the planet's total fresh water, but also play an important role in regulating the Earth's temperature. One of the most important characteristics that describe the poles is called albedo. It's a measure of how much radiation, or light, is reflected from a body. This animation provides a close-up perspective of the relationship between ice and solar reflectivity. As glaciers, the polar caps, and in this case, icebergs melt, less sunlight gets reflected into space. It is instead absorbed into the oceans and land, thus raising the overall temperature, and adding energy to a vicious circle. Several of the instruments onboard Aqua will be watching for signs of change in the planet's icy regions. Similarly, as a research platform designed to study the Earth in systemic terms, Aqua will also be monitoring larger planetary forces that might influence polar ice in an effort to provide the best possible information not only about how our home planet works, but also how it's influenced by people.
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| ITEM (10): Climate And Weather: Related But Different - They're not the same, but weather and climate are fundamentally linked. Weather describes the meteorological conditions of a particular place at a particular time. Climate is the term used for characterizing the typical, or at least average, conditions for a particular place. Said another way, climate is a function of weather patterns taken over time.
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| ITEM (11): Sibling Spacecraft On Orbit (Terra/Aqua orbit comparison) - The fact that Aqua and Terra follow similar orbital paths that have them pass by individual locations at different times is significant. Things change throughout the day on Earth, and the ability to make measurements of one place on the globe at different times is a powerful analytic tool. Sunlight on plants promotes photosynthesis, surface temperatures shift, and atmospheric characteristics shift. By adding the measuring capabilities of Aqua to Terra's already operational systems, experts hope to be able to better understand how natural processes on Earth react to cyclical changes throughout the day. |
| ITEM (12): Taking The A-Train (Formation flying) - The name "A-Train" comes from a planned sequence of satellites on orbit, starting with Aqua and ending with Aura. These two, and the three or more that will separate them are all part of a spacecraft convoy, each part of the growing fleet of Earth watching satellites that compose the Earth Observing System. This kind of satellite navigation is called Enhanced Formation Flying. It allows for highly precise cross calibration of instruments as well as near-time multi-instrument measurements. Some of the benefits of flying satellites in formation come in the area of risk management. In the future, by using fleets of less expensive, less complex satellites in place of singularly large, highly sophisticated platforms, a catastrophic failure does not necessarily cause irreparable harm to an overall mission.
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ITEM (13): An Enterprise, An Adventure - Aqua is just one component of NASA's growing Earth Observing System, an integrated fleet of satellites and data collection procedures designed to study the Earth in terms of conjoined, interdependent processes. Space offers a useful and powerful perspective for gathering information about natural and human-induced change around the world. It's not feasible to study changes in the oceans, the atmosphere, or life on Earth in global terms without looking back at the Earth from space. The Earth Observing System, or EOS, is part of the larger Earth Science Enterprise. ESE continues to develop new technologies and applications aimed at managing natural hazards, civil planning, natural resource management, and much more
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ITEM (14): Selected Soundbites With:
Phil Sabelhaus, Aqua Project Manager
Dr. Claire Parkinson, Aqua Project Scientist
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| ITEM (15): Selected B-Roll
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Earth Science Gallery