Wed, Feb 16, 2011
Stratospheric Aerosol And Gas Experiment Earth-Observing
Satellite Instrument To Fly In Three Years
The SAVE III ISS Instrument is set to be tested Tuesday
morning at Langley headquarters in Virginia.
SAGE stands for Stratospheric Aerosol And Gas Experiment. The
instrument will measure ozone, water vapor and aerosols in the
atmosphere after it is launched into orbit in 2014. SAGE III-ISS
will be attached to the space station via robotics.
During testing, the instrument will be commanded to point to and
lock onto the sun as if the satellite was engaging a sunrise event
over the horizon. Once locked onto the sun, the instrument's scan
mirror will scan the full disk of the sun every two seconds. The
event will last two to six minutes. At the conclusion of the event,
the scan head will be returned to its park position until the next
scheduled event. When testing at night, the moon is used as the
radiant source and the procedure is the same.
SAGE III is the newest incarnation of two previous SAGE
instrument designs. SAGE I was launched in 1979, followed by SAGE
II in 1984. SAGE II gathered data for more than 20 years, and the
information it collected was part of the effort that led to a
global ban on chlorofluorocarbons in 1987. Chlorofluorocarbons were
used in air-conditioning units and aerosol spray propellants that
contributed to the Earth's shrinking layer of protective ozone,
which has begun to recover due to these actions. A third SAGE
instrument, SAGE III Meteor-3M, was launched in 2001 on a Russian
satellite. It went out of service five years later when the
satellite's power supply failed.
SAGE III-ISS is set to launch in 2014. SAGE III-ISS has been
stored in a clean room at Langley since 2002. It was called back
into service in 2010 and has been undergoing testing at
Langley.
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