BackForward Satellite Programme: Quick Scatterometer Mission 

Programme details
Programme description
  • Single-satellite programme to provide continuity of sea-surface wind observation after the early failure of ADEOS-1 with NSCAT.
  • Programme framed in the NASA Earth Science Enterprise (ESE).  NASA responsible of development and operations.
  • The platform is actively stabilised over 3 axes.
  • The design life time is 3 years.
  • The satellite is on a sunsynchronous dawn-dusk orbit at 6:00.
  • See detailed descriptions at http://winds.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/quikscat.
Data circulation
  • Onboard stored data are downlinked to stations at Svalbard, Wallops (Virginia), Poker Flats (Alaska), McMurdo (Antarctica) and Hatoyama, Japan (for contingency)
  • Near-real-time processing performed by NOAA/NESDIS.
Agencies NASA
Programme lifetime 1999 - 2009
Associated satellites and instruments

Note: red tag => no longer operational , green tag => operational , blue tag => planned