Objectives and Applications
Meteorology, agriculture and forestry, environmental monitoring, climatology, physical oceanography, volcanic eruption monitoring, ice and snow cover, total ozone studies, space environment, solar flux analysis, search and rescue. The EOL date is based on a reliability and health & status analysis; the date shown is at the 60% confidence level.
Full Name
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - 18
Mission Status
Operational (extended)
Mission Agencies
Launch Date
20 May 2005
Mission Links
EOL Date
Dec 2025
Orbit Type
Sun-synchronous
Orbit Period
102.1 minutes
Orbit Sense
Ascending
Orbit Inclination
98.75 deg
Orbit Altitude
870 km
Orbit Longitude
Orbit LST
14:00
Repeat Cycle
NORAD Catalog #
International Designator
A-DCS3 - Argos Advanced Data Collection System3 |
| AMSU-A - Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-A |
| AVHRR/3 - Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer/3 |
| HIRS/4 - High Resolution Infra-red Sounder/4 |
| MHS - Microwave Humidity Sounder |
| NOAA Comms - Communications package for NOAA |
| S&R (NOAA) - Search and Rescue Satellite Aided Tracking |
| SBUV/2 - Solar Backscattter Ultra-Violet Instrument/2 |
| SEM (POES) - Space Environment Monitor |
| Category | Parameter | Instrument(s) |
| Atmosphere | Aerosols | AVHRR/3 |
| Atmospheric Humidity Fields | AMSU-A, HIRS/4, MHS |
| Cloud type, amount and cloud top temperature | AMSU-A, AVHRR/3, HIRS/4, MHS |
| Cloud particle properties and profile | AMSU-A, MHS |
| Liquid water and precipitation rate | AMSU-A, AVHRR/3, MHS |
| Ozone | HIRS/4, SBUV/2 |
| Radiation budget | AMSU-A, AVHRR/3, HIRS/4, SBUV/2 |
| Trace gases (excluding ozone) | HIRS/4 |
| Atmospheric Temperature Fields | AMSU-A, HIRS/4 |
| Land | Albedo and reflectance | AVHRR/3 |
| Soil moisture | AMSU-A |
| Vegetation | AVHRR/3 |
| Surface temperature (land) | AMSU-A, AVHRR/3, HIRS/4 |
| Multi-purpose imagery (land) | AVHRR/3 |
| Ocean | Ocean surface winds | AMSU-A |
| Surface temperature (ocean) | AVHRR/3, HIRS/4 |
| Multi-purpose imagery (ocean) | AVHRR/3 |
| Snow & Ice | Snow cover, edge and depth | AMSU-A, AVHRR/3 |
| Sea ice cover, edge and thickness | AMSU-A, AVHRR/3 |
NOAA POES and METOP Local Area Coverage Imagery
Jan-2019 | This collection is composed of AVHRR Level 1B products (1.1 km) reprocessed
from the NOAA POES and Metop AVHRR sensors data acquired at the University of
Dundee and University of Bern ground stations and from the ESA and University
of Bern data historical archive. The data collection covers Europe and the neighbouring regions in the period of
1 January 1981 to 31 December 2019. Access is provided through the ESA TPM scheme. - Read more |