AbstractIn this paper we will be looking at the CALIPSO mission. We will be studying the mission objective and subject. We will look at CALIPSO’s elements such as its payload and Bus. We will study the constraints that CALIPSO has and its duration. Another thing we will look at is the type of mission CALIPSO is. The last thing we will look at is CALIPSO’s altitude and type of orbit it is in. Keywords: Payload, Bus The CALIPSO Mission The CALIPSO mission launched on April 28, 2006. Its intended lifespan was three years but it is still giving reliable observations to this day.
Its goal was to analyze the vertical circulation of clouds and gasses and the roles they have in heating and cooling the Earth in the atmosphere. It is in near sun-synchronous orbit around the earth at an altitude of 705 km. It is a part of the formation called the “A-Train”. The train consists of these satellites in this order: Aqua, CloudSat, CALIPSO, PARASOL and Aura.
The vertical circulation of clouds and gases could affect everybody. If they cause the Earth to cool, naturally warm climates will then be colder and vice versa. If that happens then the plants and animals that are accustomed to the natural climate will die off.
If plants and animals die off the planet will see a drastic population decline. There are three main parts to the CALIPSO satellite. The first part is Caliop. Which stands for Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization. This instrument provides the data for the vertical circulation of clouds and gases and provide optical and physical properties.
The second part is the IIR which stands for Imaging Infrared Radiometer. This provides calibrated radiances at 8.65, 10.6, and 12.
05 ?m. The last part is the WFC, the Wide Frame Camera. This is a modified star tracker camera. This gives CALIPSO very accurate spatial awareness this is helpful for the constraints for CALIPSO.
CALIPSO’s two main constraints are to maintain formation with Aqua and to have CloudSat maintain formation with CALIPSO. As we keep launching satellites into orbit, Earth’s orbit is becoming cluttered. The constraints above are important because if we launched a satellite that could potentially
