Quickscat

Quick Scattermeter, also called Seawinds

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General

Designation	25789 / 99034A
Launch date	20 Jun 1999
Country of origin	United States
Mission	Remote sensing
Perigee/Apogee	803 km sun-synchronous (ascending node crossing: 6:00)
Inclination	98.7°
Period
Launch vehicle	Titan 2 #20

Mission worth $93 million ($32 for the satellite alone)

To replace the NSCAT payload aboard Adeos 1

Still operating in June 2009! In Nov 2009, the scatterometer antenna stopped spinning. A degradation planned is studied to resume partial operations.

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End of life

Out of service	2 Oct 2018
Cause	Turned off, end of mission
Decay

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External resources

http://winds.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/quikscat/quikindex.html

sat-index articles

Technical data

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Specifications

Prime contractor	Ball Aerospace
Platform	BCP-2000
Mass at launch	970 kg
Payload mass	200 kg
Dimension	2.2 x 1.7 x 1.4 m
Solar array
Stabilization	3-axis
DC power	300 W
Design lifetime	2 years

The payload (Seawinds) is provided by JPL. It's a specialized microwave radar that measures near-surface wind speed and direction under all weather and cloud conditions over Earth's oceans. It will collect wind-speed and wind direction data. The radar works ar 13.4 GHz. It has a 1800 km swath width. Can measure winds from 3 to 20 meter per second with an accuracy of 2 meters and direction with an accuracy of 20°

S-band telemetry and command
data downlink in S-band at 2 Mbps; 2 kbps S-band uplink
8 Gbit solid-state recorder

Ball will provide launch support and mission control and operations for a two-year period following launch.

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