NPP
STATUS: In Development
The National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) Preparatory Project (NPP) will provide atmospheric and sea surface temperatures, humidity sounding, land and ocean biological productivity, and cloud and aerosol properties.
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Fermi (Glast)
STATUS: Launch Successful, 6.11.2008
The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope (formally Glast) has the ability to detect gamma rays in a range of energies from thousands to hundreds of billions of times more energetic than the light visible to the human eye. Radiation of such a magnitude can only be generated under the most extreme conditions; therefore Fermi will focus on studying the most energetic objects and phenomena in the Universe.
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Swift
STATUS: Launch Successful, 11.20.2004
Swift is an agile spacecraft designed to investigate one of the universe's most elusive phenomena: gamma-ray bursts. Gamma-ray bursts are high energy explosions that occur nearly once a day from random locations across the sky. Scientists suspect the bursts maybe be produced by the birth of black holes or death of stars, but no one knows for sure. In order to find out, scientists need a spacecraft with powerful telescopes and quick reflexes to capture gamma-ray bursts as they flash and leave a lingering afterglow. Swift is precisely such a spacecraft.
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Coriolis
STATUS: Launch Successful, 1.6.2003
The Coriolis satellite will demonstrate the ability to measure wind speed and direction on the world's oceans. In addition, on-board instruments will track coronal mass ejections from the Sun as they propagate through the interplanetary medium, providing advance warning of geomagnetic disturbances. The instruments that will accomplish these tasks are named WindSat and SMEI.
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ICESat
STATUS: Launch Successful, 12.18.2002
ICESat (Ice, Cloud,and land Elevation Satellite) is the benchmark Earth Observing System mission for measuring ice sheet mass balance, cloud and aerosol heights, as well as land topography and vegetation characteristics. The ICESat mission will provide multi-year elevation data needed to determine ice sheet mass balance as well as cloud property information, especially for stratospheric clouds common over polar areas.
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QuikToms
STATUS: Launch Failed, 10.21.2001
The NASA QuikTOMS ozone monitoring satellite was lost due to the failure of the commercial launch vehicle purchased by the Agency to deliver the payload into orbit. For reasons yet unknown, the rocket appeared to briefly veer off course before correction motors restored the vehicle to its proper flight path.
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QuikScat
STATUS: Launch Successful, 6.19.1999
The SeaWinds on QuikSCAT mission is a "quick recovery" mission to fill the gap created by the loss of data from the NASA Scatterometer (NSCAT), when the satellite it was flying on lost power in June 1997. The SeaWinds instrument on the QuikSCAT satellite is a specialized microwave radar that measures near-surface wind speed and direction under all weather and cloud conditions over Earth's oceans.
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