Information About

Envisat
  CATEGORIES ABOUT ENVISAT
   
earth observation satellites
   
european space agency
   
SHOPPER'S DELIGHT
 
Shop For:  
Department
Price Minimum:
Price Maximum:
      



Envisat carries an array of nine Earth-observation instruments that gather information about the earth (land, water, ice, and atmosphere) using a variety of measurement principles.

Several of the instruments are advanced versions of instruments that were flown on the earlier ERS -1 and ERS-2 missions and other satellites.
  • ASAR (Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar ) can detect changes in surface heights with sub-millimeter precision.

  • MERIS (MEdium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer ) measures the reflectance of the Earth (surface and atmosphere) in the solar spectral range (390 to 1040 nm) and transmits some 15 spectral bands back to the ground segment.

  • AATSR (Advanced Along Track Scanning Radiometer ) can measure the temperature of the Sea surface

  • RA-2 ( Radar Altimeter 2) is a dual-frequency Nadir pointing Radar operating in the S Band and Ku Band s, it is used for measuring Ocean Topography , map/monitor Sea Ice and measure land heights.

  • MWR ( Microwave Radiometer ) for measuring Water Vapour in the Atmosphere and give corrections for the Altimeter

  • DORIS ( Doppler Orbitography and Radiopositioning Integrated by Satellite ) for orbit determination to within 10 cm or less

  • GOMOS (Global Ozone Monitoring by Occultation of Stars ) looks to stars as they descend through the Earth's atmosphere and change color, which also tells a lot about the presence of gases such as O3 ( Ozone ), and allows for the first time a space-based measurement of the vertical distribution of these trace gases.

  • MIPAS (Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding) is a Spectrometer

  • SCIAMACHY (SCanning Imaging Absorption SpectroMeter for Atmospheric CHartographY) compares light coming from the sun to light reflected by the Earth, which provides information on the atmosphere through which the earth-reflected light has passed.



EXTERNAL LINKS