Axion 3D Atlas/ATLAS.iso/sats/seasat.txt

Text File | 1998-01-23 | 1KB | 17 lines

{bigtext=20,85,"Seasat"}


{4}Launched June 28, 1978, Seasat was designed to demonstrate techniques for
global monitoring of oceanographic phenomena and features, to provide oceanographic
data, and to determine key features of an operational ocean-dynamics monitoring
system. The major difference between Seasat and previous Earth observation satellites
was the use of active and passive microwave sensors to achieve an all-weather
capability .Dedicated ocean  monitoring satellite that carried the first space-
borne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and other microwave instruments.

Due to a failure of the vehicle's electric power system the mission ended October
10, 1978.  However, its' 100 days in orbit it provided more topography data on the
world's oceans than the previous 100 years of shipboard research.   The data
consisted of information on sea-surface winds, sea-surface temperatures, wave
heights, internal waves, atmospheric water, sea ice features and ocean topography.