Coriolis

Also called Windsat and P98-2

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General

Designation	27640 / 03001A
Launch date	6 Jan 2003
Country of origin	United States
Mission
Perigee/Apogee	833 km sun-synchronous
Inclination	98.7°
Period
Launch vehicle	Titan 2 #24

For the USAF and NRL. Cost: $223.5 million.

Will measure wind speed and direction above the seas. Will also monitor solar activity (takes solar eruption photos).

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External resources

sat-index articles

http://www.pxi.com/windsat/main.html

http://www.sr.bham.ac.uk/instrument/smei.html

Technical data

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Specifications

Prime contractor	Spectrum Astro
Platform	SA-200HP
Mass at launch	827 kg
Dry mass	745 kg
Dimension	4.69 m height x 1.34 m diameter (7 m height in orbit)
Solar array	provides 1174 W at EOL
Stabilization	3-axis
DC power
Design lifetime	3 years

Has a 30 Gbit solid state recorder. Active swath 1025 km

Command and telemetry in S-band, data downlink in X-band (upto 51.2 Mbps). In S-band, the US Navy will download radiometer data in realtime.

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Payload

Windsat, a yaw-spinning polarimetric microwave radiometer experiment to passively measure the ocean surface wind vector.
Solar Mass Ejection Imager (SMEI), build by the USAF reseach lab. It will monitor solar activty with the goal of more accurately predicting geomagnetic disturvances to orbiting satellites.

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