| Date: | 2002-04-11 01:15:00 | |
| Sender: | Julie Horvath and Scott Wetzel, NASA SLR <EDC slrmail account <slrmail@dgfi.badw-muenchen.de>> | |
| Subject: | [SLR-Mail] No. 929: New Satellite ENVISAT | |
| Author: | Julie Horvath and Scott Wetzel, NASA SLR | |
| Content: | ******************************************************************************** SLR Electronic Mail 2002-04-11 01:15:00 UTC Message No. 929 ******************************************************************************** Author: Julie Horvath and Scott Wetzel, NASA SLR Subject: New Satellite ENVISAT Dear Colleagues, We have just recently been informed that Envisat is in its operational orbit as of last Friday. The ESA has requested that the ILRS community begin SLR on the ENVISAT satellite today, 4/10/2002. Envisat was launched on Mar 1, 2002, into an polar orbit and has been maneuvered during the past 40 days, into the exact 35 day repeat orbit of ERS-2. For the next few months, ERS-2 and Envisat will fly in a tandem orbit, approximately 30 minutes apart. Envisat is the follow-on mission to the ERS satellites and carries instruments to collect information that will help scientists to understand each part of the Earth system and to predict how changes in one part will affect others. Many of Envisat´s instruments are a development of those that flew on the Agency´s Earth-observing missions of the 1990s (ERS-1 and -2). This means that scientists have observations stretching back over 10 years. It will be possible, therefore, to make comparisons between conditions observed during Envisat´s lifetime and those recorded during the past 10 years. Important Envisat information: Name: Envisat Launch: Mar 1, 2002 1:07:59 GMT Altitude: 800 km Inclination: 98 deg Eccentricity: ~0.0 Mass: 8200 kg SIC #: 6179 COSPAR #: 0200901 or 2002-009A NORAD #: 27386 Npt Bin Size: 15 secs Prediction data will be provided by both ESOC and HTSI, and will be delivered by the prediction exploder and by FTP to the CDDIS and EDC. Priority will be set above the ERS-2 satellite. There will be no scheduling conflicts like Jason/TOPEX and GRACE A&B for ERS-2 and Envisat due to the time difference between the two satellites (30 minutes). Thank you for your support of this new mission. Best Regards, Julie Horvath NASA SLR julie.horvath@honeywell-tsi.com From: EDC slrmail account ******************************************************************************** |