Features

Image from TERRA
Eyes on the Snow as Water Supplies Dwindle
Tue, 20 Sep 2022 10:30 EDT

Water departments in the West are using maps and models originally created by a NASA team to help track water.

Image from TERRA
NASA and Google Team up to Better Track Local Air Pollution
Thu, 15 Sep 2022 10:00 EDT

NASA and Google broadened an existing partnership to help local governments improve their monitoring and prediction of air quality for better decision making.

Image from TERRA
Great Air Quality for the Great Lakes Region
Mon, 11 Jul 2022 09:30 EDT

Ozone pollution assessments made for the Great Lakes region now include NASA satellite and other near-real time Earth observations.

Home › Terra: The EOS Flagship

Terra: The EOS Flagship

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.

 

Terra News Features

Terra’s Lower Orbit Virtual Community Forum

Terra's Lower Orbit Virtual Community Forum Information on Terra’s Lower Virtual Orbit Community Forum and Registration QR code (click on graphic for registration page)

The Terra Flight Operations Team is planning a set of orbital maneuvers for October 12 and 19 to lower Terra’s orbit by 6 km, as part of an effort to reduce orbital crossings with several other missions currently at Terra’s 705 km altitude. For more information, view the graphic below, which is also available on the Terra website.

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

Animated Overview of the Request for Information

NASA previously released a Request for Information (RFI) on a Terra, Aqua, and Aura Drifting Orbits Workshop, for which the response date is October 11, 2022. (see animation above) The Terra, Aqua, and Aura Drifting Orbits Workshop will be held virtually on November 1-2, 2022. For more information and to register, scan the QR code from the graphic below, or visit the Terra website.

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.