The Mariner program was conducted by the American space agency NASA to explore other planets. Between 1962 and late 1973, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) designed and built 10 robotic interplanetary probes named Mariner to explore the inner Solar System – visiting the planets Venus, Mars and Mercury for the first time, and returning to Venus and Mars for additional close observations.
The Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) is a research organization at the University of Colorado Boulder. LASP is a research institute with over one hundred research scientists ranging in fields from solar influences, to Earth's and other planetary atmospherics processes, space weather, space plasma and dusty plasma physics. LASP has advanced technical capabilities specializing in designing, building, and operating spacecraft and spacecraft instruments.
An Earth observation satellite or Earth remote sensing satellite is a satellite used or designed for Earth observation (EO) from orbit, including spy satellites and similar ones intended for non-military uses such as environmental monitoring, meteorology, cartography and others. The most common type are Earth imaging satellites, that take satellite images, analogous to aerial photographs; some EO satellites may perform remote sensing without forming pictures, such as in GNSS radio occultation.
The mesosphere is the third layer of the atmosphere, directly above the stratosphere and directly below the thermosphere. In the mesosphere, temperature decreases as altitude increases. This characteristic is used to define limits: it begins at the top of the stratosphere, and ends at the mesopause, which is the coldest part of Earth's atmosphere, with temperatures below −143 °C. The exact upper and lower boundaries of the mesosphere vary with latitude and with season, but the lower boundary is usually located at altitudes from 47 to 51 km above sea level, and the upper boundary is usually from 85 to 100 km.
The Cosmic Background Explorer, also referred to as Explorer 66, was a NASA satellite dedicated to cosmology, which operated from 1989 to 1993. Its goals were to investigate the cosmic microwave background radiation of the universe and provide measurements that would help shape our understanding of the cosmos.
The Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) was a NASA-operated orbital observatory whose mission was to study the Earth's atmosphere, particularly the protective ozone layer. The 5,900-kilogram (13,000 lb) satellite was deployed from Space Shuttle Discovery during the STS-48 mission on 15 September 1991. It entered Earth orbit at an operational altitude of 600 kilometers (370 mi), with an orbital inclination of 57 degrees.
Noctilucent clouds (NLCs), or night shining clouds, are tenuous cloud-like phenomena in the upper atmosphere of Earth. When viewed from space, they are called polar mesospheric clouds (PMCs), detectable as a diffuse scattering layer of water ice crystals near the summer polar mesopause. They consist of ice crystals and from the ground are only visible during astronomical twilight. Noctilucent roughly means "night shining" in Latin. They are most often observed during the summer months from latitudes between ±50° and ±70°. Too faint to be seen in daylight, they are visible only when the observer and the lower layers of the atmosphere are in Earth's shadow, but while these very high clouds are still in sunlight. Recent studies suggest that increased atmospheric methane emissions produce additional water vapor through chemical reactions once the methane molecules reach the mesosphere – creating, or reinforcing existing, noctilucent clouds.
The TIMED mission is dedicated to study the influences that energetics and dynamics of the Sun and humans have on the least explored and understood region of Earth's atmosphere – the Mesosphere and Lower Thermosphere / Ionosphere (MLTI). The mission was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on 7 December 2001 aboard a Delta II rocket launch vehicle. The project is sponsored and managed by NASA, while the spacecraft was designed and assembled by the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University. The mission has been extended several times, and has now collected data over an entire solar cycle, which helps in its goal to differentiate the Sun's effects on the atmosphere from other effects. It shared its Delta II launch vehicle with the Jason-1 oceanography mission.
This is a list of meteorology topics. The terms relate to meteorology, the interdisciplinary scientific study of the atmosphere that focuses on weather processes and forecasting.
Polar mesospheric summer echoes (PMSE) is the phenomenon of anomalous radar echoes found between 80 and 90 km in altitude from May through early August in the Arctic, and from November through to February in the Antarctic. These strong radar echoes are associated with the extremely cold temperatures that occur above continental Antarctica during the summer. Rocket and radar measurements indicate that a partial reflection from a multitude of ion layers and constructive interference causes at least some of the PMSE.
The International Cometary Explorer (ICE) spacecraft, designed and launched as the International Sun-Earth Explorer-3 (ISEE-3) satellite, was launched on 12 August 1978 into a heliocentric orbit. It was one of three spacecraft, along with the mother/daughter pair of ISEE-1 and ISEE-2, built for the International Sun-Earth Explorer (ISEE) program, a joint effort by NASA and ESRO/ESA to study the interaction between the Earth's magnetic field and the solar wind.
Odin is a Swedish satellite working in two disciplines: astrophysics and aeronomy, and it was named after Odin of Norse mythology. Within the field of astrophysics, Odin was used until the spring of 2007 aiding in the study of star formation. Odin is still used for aeronomical observations, including exploration of the depletion of the ozone layer and effects of global warming. In February 2019 it celebrated 18 years in Earth orbit, and was still functioning nominally.
The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) is a NASA mission which has been observing the Sun since 2010. Launched on 11 February 2010, the observatory is part of the Living With a Star (LWS) program.
Heliophysics is the physics of the Sun and its connection with the Solar System. NASA defines heliophysics as "(1) the comprehensive new term for the science of the Sun - Solar System Connection, (2) the exploration, discovery, and understanding of Earth's space environment, and (3) the system science that unites all of the linked phenomena in the region of the cosmos influenced by a star like our Sun."
Space Dynamics Laboratory (SDL) is a nonprofit government contractor owned by Utah State University. SDL is the sole University Affiliated Research Center (UARC) for the United States Missile Defense Agency; and, is one of 15 UARCs in the nation for the United States Department of Defense. Together with Utah State University, SDL has completed over 420 successful space missions and deployed over 500 independent hardware and software systems into space.
Explorer 33, also known as IMP-D and AIMP-1, is a spacecraft in the Explorer program launched by NASA on 1 July 1966 on a mission of scientific exploration. It was the fourth satellite launched as part of the Interplanetary Monitoring Platform series, and the first of two "Anchored IMP" spacecraft to study the environment around Earth at lunar distances, aiding the Apollo program. It marked a departure in design from its predecessors, IMP-A through IMP-C. Explorer 35 was the companion spacecraft to Explorer 33 in the Anchored IMP program, but Explorer 34 (IMP-F) was the next spacecraft to fly, launching about two months before AIMP-E, both in 1967.
The Solar Mesosphere Explorer was a 1980s NASA spacecraft to investigate the processes that create and destroy ozone in Earth's upper atmosphere. The mesosphere is a layer of the atmosphere extending from the top of the stratosphere to an altitude of about 80 km (50 mi). The spacecraft carried five instruments to measure ozone, water vapor, and incoming solar radiation.
The Charged Aerosol Release Experiment also known as CARE, is a project run by NASA which will use a rocket to release dust in the upper atmosphere to form a dusty plasma in space. The clouds thus generated are intended to simulate naturally occurring phenomena called noctilucent clouds, which are the highest clouds in the atmosphere. The CARE experiment is intended to create an artificial dust layer at the boundary of space in a controlled sense, in order to "allow scientists to study different aspects of it, the turbulence generated on the inside, the distribution of dust particles and such."
The Heliophysics Science Division of the Goddard Space Flight Center (NASA) conducts research on the Sun, its extended Solar System environment, and interactions of Earth, other planets, small bodies, and interstellar gas with the heliosphere. Division research also encompasses geospace—Earth's uppermost atmosphere, the ionosphere, and the magnetosphere—and the changing environmental conditions throughout the coupled heliosphere.
Student Nitric Oxide Explorer, was a NASA small scientific satellite which studied the concentration of nitric oxide in the thermosphere. It was launched in 1998 as part of NASA's Explorer program. The satellite was the first of three missions developed within the Student Explorer Demonstration Initiative (STEDI) program funded by the NASA and managed by the Universities Space Research Association (USRA). STEDI was a pilot program to demonstrate that high-quality space science can be carried out with small, low-cost free-flying satellites on a time scale of two years from go-ahead to launch. The satellite was developed by the University of Colorado Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) and had met its goals by the time its mission ended with reentry in December 2003.
