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July 15, 2004
Aura Launched, to Better Understand the Air We Breathe
Aura, a mission dedicated to the health of the Earth’s atmosphere, successfully launched today at 6:01:59 a.m. EDT (3:01:59 a.m. PDT)
from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., aboard a Boeing Delta II rocket. Spacecraft separation occurred at 7:06 a.m. EDT (4:06 a.m. PDT), inserting
Aura into a 438-mile (705-kilometer) orbit.
NASA’s latest Earth-observing satellite, Aura will help us understand and protect the air we breathe.
“This moment marks a tremendous achievement for the NASA family and our international partners. We look forward to the Aura satellite
offering us historic insight into the tough issues of global air quality, ozone recovery and climate change,” said NASA Associate Administrator
for Earth Science Dr. Ghassem Asrar. “This mission advances NASA’s exploration of Earth and will also better our understanding of our
neighbors in the planetary system. Aura joins its siblings, Terra, Aqua and 10 more research satellites developed and launched by NASA during the
past decade, to study our home planet,” he added.
Aura will help answer three key scientific questions: Is the Earth’s protective ozone layer recovering? What are the processes controlling
air quality? How is the Earth’s climate changing? NASA expects early scientific data from Aura within 30-90 days.
Aura also will help scientists understand how the composition of the atmosphere affects and responds to Earth’s changing climate. The
results from this mission will help scientists better understand the processes that connect local and global air quality.
Each of Aura’s four instruments is designed to survey different aspects of Earth’s atmosphere. Aura will survey the atmosphere from
the troposphere, where mankind lives, through the stratosphere, where the ozone layer resides and protects life on Earth.
With the launch of Aura, the first series of NASA’s Earth Observing System satellites is complete. The other satellites are Terra, which
monitors land, and Aqua, which observes Earth’s water cycle.
Aura’s four instruments are: the High Resolution Dynamics Limb Sounder (HIRDLS); the Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS); the Ozone Monitoring
Instrument (OMI); and the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES). HIRDLS was built by the United Kingdom and the United States. OMI was built by
the Netherlands and Finland in collaboration with NASA. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., constructed TES and MLS.
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., manages the Aura mission.
“Many people have worked very hard to reach this point and the entire team is very excited,” said Aura Project Manager Rick Pickering
of Goddard.
NASA’s Earth Science Enterprise is dedicated to understanding the Earth as an integrated system and applying Earth System Science to improve
prediction of climate, weather and natural hazards using the unique vantage point of space.
For Aura information and images on the Internet, visit:
http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/2004/0517aura.html
and
http://www.nasa.gov/aura
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Contacts:
Gretchen Cook-Anderson
Headquarters, Washington
Phone: 202/358-0836
Lynn Chandler
Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Md.
Phone: 301/286-2806
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Aura satellite - artist’s concept.
High-Resolution Image
High-Resolution Image (Alternatie View 1)
High-Resolution Image (Alternatie View 2)
High-Resolution Image (Alternatie View 3)
Canadian Smoke
Smoke from multiple large wildfires in Canada blanketed the Great Lakes and eastern United States. The enormous smoke plume was almost 200 miles
wide. The thick pall affected air quality from New York, to Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. and blocked the sunlight cooling the East Coast. The left
image was taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Terra satellite on July 7, 2002. The right image comes from
NASA’s Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) on the Earth Probe satellite. Highest aerosol concentration is in red.
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Ozone Hole
The Antarctic ozone hole of 2003
was the second largest ever observed. The dark blue indicates the region of maximum ozone depletion.
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Ozone Hole Growth
TOMS images show the growth of the ozone hole over 20 years.
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Aerosol’s Effect on Climate
Aerosols affect climate both directly by reflecting and absorbing sunlight and indirectly by modifying clouds. The TOMS aerosol index is an
indicator of smoke and dust absorption. The image shows aerosols crossing the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Dust from the Sahara desert is carried
westward toward the Americas. Asian dust and pollution travel to the Pacific Northwest.
High-Resolution Image
Aura Satellite
This is a photograph of the Aura satellite in the clean room prior to launch. Credit: Northrop Grumman.
High-Resolution Image
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