SeaSat Satellite Mission Summary

CEOS EO HANDBOOK – MISSION SUMMARY - SeaSat -

Full Name

Seafaring Satellite

Status

Mission complete

Mission Agencies

NASA

Launch Date

26 Jun 1978

Mission Links

EOL Date

08 Oct 1978

EO Portal Info

NORAD Catalog #

10967 (TLE)

International Designator

1978-064A

Orbit Type

Orbit Period

Orbit Sense

Orbit Inclination

Orbit Altitude

Orbit Longitude

Orbit LST

Repeat Cycle

Objectives and Applications

Mission Measurements

Category	Parameter	Instrument(s)
Snow & Ice	Sea ice cover, edge and thickness	SMMR

Mission Instruments

ALT (SeaSat) - Radar Altimeter

L-Band SAR - L-Band SAR

LRR (SeaSat) - Laser Retro-Reflector

SASS - SeaSat-A Scatterometer System

SMEI - Solar Mass Ejection Imager

SMMR - Scanning Multi-channel Microwave Radiometer

VIRR (SeaSat) - Visible and Infra Red Radiometer

Featured Datasets
More Datasets

SeaSat ESA Archive
Jan-1978

SeaSat was a NASA/JPL experimental EO mission launched in 1978. It carried the first space borne SAR. During its brief 106-day lifetime, SeaSat collected more information about the oceans than had been acquired in the previous 100 years of shipboard research. The SAR instrument provided a wealth of information on diverse ocean phenomena such as sea-surface winds and temperatures, surface and internal waves, currents, sea ice, wind, and rainfall, thus giving the first global view of ocean circulation. The collection is the complete SeaSat dataset acquired by ESA, and access is provided through the TPM scheme. Read more

OpenSearch Datasets

Selected IDN OpenSearch Results (search all 2 )
Elevation Change of the Southern Greenland Ice Sheet from 1978-88, Version 1

Seasat and GEOSAT Altimetry for the Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheets, Version 1 <p><font color=

Note: This data set is now on HTTPS so references to CD-ROM are historic and no longer applicable.

The Ice Altimetry System (IAS) data seet contains surface elevations of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets derived from Seasat and GEOSAT radar altimetry data. The Seasat data were collected for a continuous 90 days in 1978, at latitudes between 72 degrees South and 72 degrees North. GEOSAT was launched in 1985 and placed in a nearly identical orbit to Seasat, also at latitudes of between 72 degrees South and 72 degrees North. The orbit was designed to provide high-density measurements over the Earth's surface, at a maximum grid spacing of 2.7 kilometers at the equator and much denser spacing over polar ice sheets. Data were acquired between April 1985 and September 1986. Initially acquired by the Johns Hopkins APL (Applied Physics Lab) satellite tracking facility, the raw altimetry satellite data from Seasat and GEOSAT were passed on to NASA, via the US Navy. NASA developed slope correction routines for the higher slopes over the ice sheets, relative to ocean surfaces. The data are height profile Level 3 data and gridded height Level 4 data provided by the Oceans and Ice branch of the Laboratory for Hydrospheric Physics of Goddard Space Flight Center. Elevations from the full data rate (i.e., one measurement every 662.5 m) are provided in georeferenced databases. These elevations are relative to the WGS-84 ellipsoid. Gridded elevations at 10-kilometer and 20-kilometer spacing are provided in the gridded data sets created from the GEOSAT and Seasat data, respectively. Software to extract and browse subsets of these data is included. The IAS software also allows the user to view contours created from the gridded data and groundtracks of the full-rate data." height="12px" width="12px">

Selected FedEO OpenSearch Results (view all 1 results: browser , table )
SeaSat ESA archive

Want to explore more? Read about FedEO by ESA or click here to search FedEO or CMR OpenSearch by NASA