June 15, 2009 - QuikSCAT Sticks Around

Published in cooperation with The Planetary Society

Spend the year in space, one week at a time

Recent Weeks

January 30, 2012 - Lunar Orbiter Liftoff

January 23, 2012 - Magellan Turns up the Stereo

January 16, 2012 - Southern Sibling Sees Stars

January 9, 2012 - Hitching a Ride Home

January 2, 2012 - Transforming the Space Frontier

December 26, 2011 - These Laws Can't Be Broken

December 19, 2011 - Long and Winding Road

December 12, 2011 - Blast from the Past

December 5, 2011 - It’s Just Like Folding a Map

November 28, 2011 - A Warmer, Wetter Mars

November 21, 2011 - Spy in the Sky

November 14, 2011 - The Dark Side of Nebulosity

November 7, 2011 - End of an Era

October 31, 2011 - Final Service Call

October 24, 2011 - STEREO Transit

October 17, 2011 - Observatory Mashup

October 10, 2011 - Brewing up a New Moon

October 3, 2011 - Special Delivery

September 26, 2011 - Tadpoles in Space

September 19, 2011 - International Sunrise

September 12, 2011 - Twins over India

September 5, 2011 - Belly of the Beast

August 29, 2011 - High Resolution

August 22, 2011 - Playing Host

August 15, 2011 - Royal Astronomer

August 8, 2011 - New Life for Leonardo

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The Week in Space

June 15-21, 2009

QuikSCAT Sticks Around Built in just one year, NASA’s Quick Scatterometer (QuikSCAT) is an earth-observing satellite that measures the speed and direction of ocean winds. It is in a sun-synchronous 500-mile orbit, passing close to Earth’s north and south poles. QuikSCAT data, like this global view of ocean winds, helps predict severe weather, but also reveals changes in vegetation and ice extent over land and polar regions. Launched ten years ago this week, QuikSCAT was originally a “quick recovery” mission to temporarily fill the data gap created by the loss of the NASA Scatterometer (NSCAT) in 1997; however, in light of the 2003 failure of the ADEOS II satellite that was to succeed the NSCAT, QuikSCAT is currently the only US-owned satellite that measures surface winds over the oceans.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech