QuikSCAT satellite is performing flawlessly following its on-orbit delivery to the Goddard Space Flight Center July 19, reports the satellite's maker Ball Aerospace.
During the past two weeks, the Mission Operations Center (MOC), at the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics under a subcontractor agreement with Ball Aerospace, has been performing normal routine operations.
"The MOC is taking up to 15 real-time satellite contacts a day to play back science and housekeeping data, and we're still fully staffing those contacts," said Marda Barthuli, Ball Aerospace's QuikSCAT mission operations manager. "We are in the process of moving toward automated operations in which computer systems autonomously monitor the data for problems and page delegated personnel if a problem is detected."
The science team will continue calibration and validation of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory-built SeaWinds scatterometer data for the next several months, according to Barthuli. Already, newly released animated data from SeaWinds captured Typhoon Olga in its infancy and followed its progression from a tropical depression to a typhoon.
"We are immensely pleased that QuikSCAT is performing so well," said Dave L. Taylor, vice president for Commercial Space Operations at Ball Aerospace. "QuikSCAT is proving the viability of our Ball Commercial Platform 2000. We now look forward to completing our two QuickBirds for EarthWatch, Incorporated, and the Ice Cloud and land Elevation Satellite for Goddard.
QuikSCAT is managed by JPL for NASA's Earth Science Enterprise, and is part of a long-term, coordinated research effort to study the total Earth system and the effects of natural and human-induced changes in the environment. QuikSCAT will record sea-surface wind speed and direction data, collecting approximately 400,000 measurements daily.
