| UPDATES |
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06.11.2008: CALIPSO operations and processing have resumed. The payload became operational at 20:50 UTC on June 10. |
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06.04.2008: CALIPSO data processing has been suspended. The payload transititioned to safe mode on June 3 and the team is investigating. Please check for an update on the status of the mission. |
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04.24.2008: CALIPSO Expedited Browse Images are now available and have a processing latency of about 12 hours. These products use degraded attitude information, a simple calibration scheme based on climatology and are made available to support operational forecasting activities. When available, the standard products should be used for detailed science analysis. » View CALIPSO Products |
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» More CALIPSO updates |
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INTRODUCTION
The Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) satellite provides new insight into the role that clouds and atmospheric aerosols (airborne particles) play in regulating Earth's weather, climate, and air quality.
CALIPSO combines an active lidar instrument with passive infrared and visible imagers to probe the vertical structure and properties of thin clouds and aerosols over the globe. CALIPSO was launched on April 28, 2006 with the cloud profiling radar system on the CloudSat satellite.
CALIPSO and CloudSat are highly complementary and together provide new, never-before-seen 3-D perspectives of how clouds and aerosols form, evolve, and affect weather and climate. CALIPSO and CloudSat fly in formation with three other satellites in the A-train constellation to enable an even greater understanding of our climate system from the broad array of sensors on these other spacecraft.
CALIPSO is a joint U.S. (NASA) and French (Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales/CNES) satellite mission with an expected 3 year lifetime.
» Read more …
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