- Email: [email protected]
Parasol — First images
(RECTAS), which is also located on the OAU campus. ARCSSTE-E has already offered six postgraduate courses and eight short-term programmes. About 30 scholars from nine countries in the region attended the long-term courses.
P a r a s o l - First Images
p
arasol (Polarization and Anisotropy of Reflectances for Atmospheric Sciences coupled with Observations from a Lidar) is the second microsatellite in the Myriade series developed by CNES. It is carrying a wide-field imaging radiometer/ polarimeter called POLDER (Polarization and Directionality of the Earth's Reflectances), designed in partnership with the LOA atmospheric optics laboratory in Lille (CNRSUSTL). POLDER is designed to improve our knowledge of the radiative and microphysical properties of clouds and aerosols by measuring the directionality and polarization of light reflected by the Earth-atmosphere system. Parasol was launched successfully onboard an Ariane 5 on the 18 December 2004.
Regional Centre for Space Science and Technology Education for Latin America and the Caribbean - Brazil and Mexico campuses (CRECTEALC) The Regional Centre for Space Science and Technology Education for Latin America and the Caribbean - Brazil and Mexico campuses (CRECTEALC) was established in 1997 after Brazil and Mexico signed an agreement recognizing the Centre with a campus located in each country. The campus in Brazil benefits from the facilities made available to it by the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), a renowned Brazilian research institution in space science and technology. Similar high quality facilities are found at the campus in Mexico that is supported by the National Institute of Astronomy, Opticals and Electronics. The CRECTEALC (Campus Brazil) has already conducted two postgraduate courses and four short-term programmes in RS & GIS. The postgraduate courses have benefited 25 scholars from 10 countries in the region. The Mexican campus is planning to offer its first postgraduate programme during 2005. For more detailed information on each Centre and the curricula of the core disciplines, please see the web site portal address: http ://www°°saunvienna°rg/SAP/centres/ centres.htm.
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The first image to be acquired, which shows aerosols and clouds over Chad, was obtained on 7 January 2005. The upper image shows a yellowish desert area. The Tibesti mountains appear in dark, clouds in the north, and the yellow-white shady area at the bottom left is a sand storm. The lower image shows the same region in polarized light. The blue colour is due to atmospheric diffusion, surface details do not show up, as the source of polarized light is mostly within the atmosphere. The rainbow colours in the cloudy area indicates that the top of the cloudy area is composed of liquid water. The presence of sand aerosols is confirmed. The Parasol satellite is part of the intemational A-train, a series of Earth-orbiting missions, which follow each other in orbit, and are devoted to cloud and aerosol studies. Currently, the A-train missions in operation include NASA's Aqua and Aura missions, along with the Parasol mission, and these will soon be complemented by the Calipso and Cloudsat satellites (dual launch planned for 22 August 2005). These satellites are to be joined later by NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory
operation. [Extracted from CNES press releases of January/March 2005; see also http://polder.cnes.fr/en/index.htm.]
(OCO) in 2008. This will for the first time ever that a full suite of instruments for observing clouds and aerosols, from passive radiometers to active lidar and radar sounders, has been in
First white fight image from Parasol (left hand image); the white spot in the bottom left is due to the solar reflection from a lake. The same image but in polarized light (right hand image).
Highlights from Years in Orbit
Integral:
2002 at 0441 UTC from Baikonur Cosmodrome (Kazakhstan). The four-stage Proton launch vehicle injected the spacecraft into its 72-hour orbit with utmost precision. The initial orbital parameters are perigee height: 9000 km; apogee height: 154 000 km; inclination: 52.2 °. After a nominal commissioning phase, science observations began on 30 December 2002. Integral carries two main gamma-ray instruments: the spectrometer- SPI, optimized for the high-resolution gamma-ray line spectroscopy, consists of 19 cooled germanium detectors operating in the 20 keV - 8 MeV range. The angular resolution within the 16° Full-Width Half-Maximum (FWHM) coded mask is 2.5 ° FWHM and its energy resolution at 1 MeV is 2.5 keV FWHM. The i m a g e r IBIS, optimized for high-angular resolution imaging, operates in the 15 k e V - 10 MeV band with 9x9 ° FOV (FWHM) and excellent angular resolution of 12 arcmin (FWHM).
Two
[by Christoph Winkler, ESA, Noordwijk, The Netherlands]
[
T
he International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory Integral (Winkler et al. 2003) was launched on 17 October
11
P a r a s o l - First Images
p
arasol (Polarization and Anisotropy of Reflectances for Atmospheric Sciences coupled with Observations from a Lidar) is the second microsatellite in the Myriade series developed by CNES. It is carrying a wide-field imaging radiometer/ polarimeter called POLDER (Polarization and Directionality of the Earth's Reflectances), designed in partnership with the LOA atmospheric optics laboratory in Lille (CNRSUSTL). POLDER is designed to improve our knowledge of the radiative and microphysical properties of clouds and aerosols by measuring the directionality and polarization of light reflected by the Earth-atmosphere system. Parasol was launched successfully onboard an Ariane 5 on the 18 December 2004.
Regional Centre for Space Science and Technology Education for Latin America and the Caribbean - Brazil and Mexico campuses (CRECTEALC) The Regional Centre for Space Science and Technology Education for Latin America and the Caribbean - Brazil and Mexico campuses (CRECTEALC) was established in 1997 after Brazil and Mexico signed an agreement recognizing the Centre with a campus located in each country. The campus in Brazil benefits from the facilities made available to it by the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), a renowned Brazilian research institution in space science and technology. Similar high quality facilities are found at the campus in Mexico that is supported by the National Institute of Astronomy, Opticals and Electronics. The CRECTEALC (Campus Brazil) has already conducted two postgraduate courses and four short-term programmes in RS & GIS. The postgraduate courses have benefited 25 scholars from 10 countries in the region. The Mexican campus is planning to offer its first postgraduate programme during 2005. For more detailed information on each Centre and the curricula of the core disciplines, please see the web site portal address: http ://www°°saunvienna°rg/SAP/centres/ centres.htm.
10
The first image to be acquired, which shows aerosols and clouds over Chad, was obtained on 7 January 2005. The upper image shows a yellowish desert area. The Tibesti mountains appear in dark, clouds in the north, and the yellow-white shady area at the bottom left is a sand storm. The lower image shows the same region in polarized light. The blue colour is due to atmospheric diffusion, surface details do not show up, as the source of polarized light is mostly within the atmosphere. The rainbow colours in the cloudy area indicates that the top of the cloudy area is composed of liquid water. The presence of sand aerosols is confirmed. The Parasol satellite is part of the intemational A-train, a series of Earth-orbiting missions, which follow each other in orbit, and are devoted to cloud and aerosol studies. Currently, the A-train missions in operation include NASA's Aqua and Aura missions, along with the Parasol mission, and these will soon be complemented by the Calipso and Cloudsat satellites (dual launch planned for 22 August 2005). These satellites are to be joined later by NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory
operation. [Extracted from CNES press releases of January/March 2005; see also http://polder.cnes.fr/en/index.htm.]
(OCO) in 2008. This will for the first time ever that a full suite of instruments for observing clouds and aerosols, from passive radiometers to active lidar and radar sounders, has been in
First white fight image from Parasol (left hand image); the white spot in the bottom left is due to the solar reflection from a lake. The same image but in polarized light (right hand image).
Highlights from Years in Orbit
Integral:
2002 at 0441 UTC from Baikonur Cosmodrome (Kazakhstan). The four-stage Proton launch vehicle injected the spacecraft into its 72-hour orbit with utmost precision. The initial orbital parameters are perigee height: 9000 km; apogee height: 154 000 km; inclination: 52.2 °. After a nominal commissioning phase, science observations began on 30 December 2002. Integral carries two main gamma-ray instruments: the spectrometer- SPI, optimized for the high-resolution gamma-ray line spectroscopy, consists of 19 cooled germanium detectors operating in the 20 keV - 8 MeV range. The angular resolution within the 16° Full-Width Half-Maximum (FWHM) coded mask is 2.5 ° FWHM and its energy resolution at 1 MeV is 2.5 keV FWHM. The i m a g e r IBIS, optimized for high-angular resolution imaging, operates in the 15 k e V - 10 MeV band with 9x9 ° FOV (FWHM) and excellent angular resolution of 12 arcmin (FWHM).
Two
[by Christoph Winkler, ESA, Noordwijk, The Netherlands]
[
T
he International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory Integral (Winkler et al. 2003) was launched on 17 October
11