Terra: the EOS Flagship

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The Terra satellite team would like to inform the user community of an upcoming change in the flight operations of the mission expected to take place in mid-June 2023.

A recent programmatic change in the Terra mission is prompting the flight operation staffing to go from 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, with limited operational response when staff are not on site. For more information, see the graphic below.

Terra explores the connections between Earth’s atmosphere, land, snow and ice, ocean, and energy balance to understand Earth’s climate and climate change and to map the impact of human activity and natural disasters on communities and ecosystems

Images of five globes, each depicting an example of data collected by Terra instruments, including land composition from ASTER, reflected energy from CERES, vegetation snow and ice from MODIS, aerosols from MISR, and carbon monoxide from MOPITT.

 

Latest News from the Terra Mission

The Terra Project would like to inform the user community of an upcoming change in the flight operations of the mission expected to take place in mid-June 2023. A recent programmatic change in the Terra mission is prompting the flight operation staffing to go from 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, with limited operational response when staff are not on site. The Terra platform and all five instruments continue to operate well and no issues have been encountered since the October 2022 orbit lowering maneuver. No impacts to data product quality are expected as a result of the change in operations; however, there is the possibility of data losses and slowed data product deliveries due to hardware anomalies that occur during limited operational response periods. Recovery from platform and instrument safeholds would also encounter delays from the smaller number of operators. Terra's flight operations team has done an excellent job in the past to address and recover from the various mission anomalies and a similar level of excellence is expected in the 12/7 operation scenario. The team will monitor the platform's behavior and instrument health as Terra continues moving to earlier equator crossing times. No significant effects on the quality of all Terra products should occur due to the changing orbit. The Terra Project, through the Terra website and instrument websites, will do its best to keep the community informed of any data losses or instrument down times from anomalies.

NASA’s Terra, Aqua, and Aura Data Continuity Workshop

Recently, NASA released a new Request for Information (RFI) (linked here) seeking input from the science community and stakeholders on data product continuity needs, capabilities, and gaps, as NASA’s Terra, Aqua, and Aura missions reach the end of their operational life. 

NASA will use these RFI responses to help plan a virtual Terra/Aqua/Aura Data Continuity Workshop, which is currently scheduled for May 23-25, 2023 from 11AM to 6PM ET. This workshop will determine needs, evaluate current capabilities, identify gaps, and specify potential actions for these missions. For more information, view the graphic to the right, with QR codes linked to the Agenda with Webex Links and the workshop registration page, also linked here.

Past News Features

Terra’s Lower Orbit Virtual Community Forum

NASA’s Terra, Aqua, and Aura Drifting Orbits Workshop Information

Animated Overview of the Request for Information

Terra Begins Drifting. What’s Next?

After more than 20 years orbiting at 705 km above Earth’s surface and routinely crossing the equator at approximately the same time every day, Terra is now drifting. With no maneuvers planned to sustain Terra’s altitude and crossing time, Terra will slowly get closer and closer to Earth – crossing the equator earlier and earlier as time passes. However, despite impacts to some of Terra’s nearly 100 data products, Terra’s five sensors continue to collect meaningful scientific data, producing one of the longest continuous climate data records collected by a satellite. Read more…

Terra: Providing Critical Data to Help Society

 

Terra’s five sensors help us understand out changing planet and provide critical data used in applications from food security, volcanic monitoring, wildfire safety, public health, and climate modeling. Terra’s twenty years of data continue to contribute to how we understand Earth and how we respond when disasters strike.

Twenty Years of Terra in Our Lives

 

Terra’s suite of instruments allows us to understand our world well beyond what we knew twenty years ago, when Terra launched. In those twenty years, new applications and contributions to science have been made possible.

There is no question that technology has changed. But, at the same time that our lives on Earth were being shaped by our access to technology, 705 kilometers above us, a satellite was changing how we understood our planet.

For 20 years, Terra, the flagship Earth observing satellite,
has chronicled changes on Earth. Designed and built in the 1980s and 90s, NASA and Lockheed Martin engineers set out to build a satellite that could take simultaneous measurements of Earth’s atmosphere, land, and water. Its mission – to understand how Earth is changing and to identify the consequences for life on Earth. Season after season, Terra data continues to help
us understand how the evolving systems of our planet affect our lives – and how
we can use that data to benefit society. Read more and find resources from our anniversary events, Terra 20 Events

Update on Terra’s New Orbit: Since 2020, Terra has been drifting to an earlier equator crossing time, and in October 2022 was lowered by ~5km in altitude. These changes in orbit did not reduce the data quality of Terra products, and only created minor changes to orbital repeat time and swath width (for some instruments). See Terra’s New Orbit for more information.

Science Visualizations

ASTER

ASTER

CERES

CERES

MISR

MISR

Ocean Color in Gulf of Alaska

MODIS

MOPITT Globe

MOPITT