Sunday, June 10, marks the one year anniversary of the launch of SAC-D/Aquarius, a satellite for scientific applications designed and built by INVAP for the Argentine Commission of Space Activities (CONAE) and NASA of the USA.
After its successful launch on June 10, 2011, SAC-D/Aquarius produced its first global map of ocean surface salinity in September 2011, providing an early glimpse of the mission’s anticipated discoveries.
Among other applications, the satellite’s purpose is to study the salinity levels of oceans and their influence on Earth’s climate, allowing to trace a map of global salinity variations to better predict future weather conditions. During the next 2 years, every 7 days it will provide details of the oceans from a distance of approximately 650 km and will show salinity variations along time between the different areas of the oceans.
SAC-D satellite carries seven instruments that will collect environmental data for a wide range of applications, including studies about natural hazards, quality of air, Earth processes and epidemiology. SAC-D/Aquarius is a satellite Project in scientific collaboration between the space agencies of the USA, Brazil, Canada, France, Italy and Argentina.
