Aqua Satellite

NOAA-20 Provides Continuity to Satellite Matching After Aqua Retires

NOAA-20 Provides Continuity to Satellite Matching After Aqua Retires

Artist rendition of NOAA-20 satelliteNASA’s Aqua satellite has collected a vast amount of information about the Earth’s water cycle, including clouds, since its launch in 2002. While Aqua was predicted to have a life of six years, it continued to perform way beyond those initial expectations. But, after twenty years of enormous contributions, Aqua began its final years of operations. In January 2022, Aqua’s orbit started to drift. Aqua’s solar array will no longer receive enough sunlight to power the spacecraft and its instruments in late summer 2026; so, they will be turned off. One of such instruments is the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). MODIS has played a critical role for the GLOBE Clouds team. For each observation you have made that matches in time and location with the Aqua satellite, you have received a MODIS true-color image. MODIS images show the conditions around you at the time of your observation. For GLOBE Clouds’ students, educators, and citizen scientists around the world, the end of Aqua and MODIS operations may feel like very sad news. After all, we have been matching so many cloud observations from the ground to observations made by Aqua’s MODIS . Yet, there is actually good news! The inevitable loss of Aqua and MODIS will have less of an impact on GLOBE Clouds observations. This is because the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instruments aboard theNOAA-20 satellite are in place. We are already able to match GLOBE Clouds observations to NOAA-20. So, we look forward to continuing doing great science by combining data obtained from the ground with data obtained from satellites.