Proceedings Article | 12 October 2011
KEYWORDS: Climatology, Earth sciences, Satellites, Space operations, Climate change, Environmental sensing, Carbon, Earth's atmosphere, Observatories, Meteorological satellites
NASA's Earth Science Division (ESD) conducts pioneering work in Earth system science, the interdisciplinary view
of Earth that explores the interaction among the atmosphere, oceans, ice sheets, land surface interior, and life itself
that has enabled scientists to measure global and climate changes and to inform decisions by governments,
organizations, and people in the United States and around the world. The ESD makes the data collected and results
generated by its missions accessible to other agencies and organizations to improve the products and services they
provide, including air quality indices, disaster management, agricultural yield projections, and aviation safety. In
addition to four missions now in development and 14 currently operating on-orbit, the ESD is now developing the
first tier of missions recommended by the 2007 Earth Science Decadal Survey and is conducting engineering studies
and technology development for the second tier. Furthermore, NASA's ESD is planning implementation of a set of
climate continuity missions to assure availability of key data sets needed for climate science and applications. These
include a replacement for the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO), OCO-2, planned for launch in 2013;
refurbishment of the SAGE III atmospheric chemistry instrument to be hosted by the International Space Station
(ISS) as early as 2014; and the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE FO) mission
scheduled for launch in 2016. The new Earth Venture (EV) class of missions is a series of uncoupled, low to
moderate cost, small to medium-sized, competitively selected, full orbital missions, instruments for orbital missions
of opportunity, and sub-orbital projects.
