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PARASOL

TERRA  »»        AQUA  »»        AURA  »»        CLOUDSAT  »»        CALIPSO  »»        OCO  »»        PARASOL  »»        A-TRAIN  »»

Click to enlarge NASA artist concept of the A Train satellites above Earth. OCO will be front after its launch.

PARASOL is short for Polarization & Anisotropy of Reflectances for Atmospheric Sciences coupled with Observations from a Lidar. It is a project of the French space agency Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES).

PARASOL records observations of the aerosols and clouds in the atmosphere for a better understanding of the Earth's climate. The satellite's radiometer studies the atmosphere by measuring the direction and polarization of light reflected by clouds and aerosols in our planet's atmosphere.

PARASOL was launched aboard an Ariane 5 on December 18, 2004, from the European Space Agency's (ESA) launch complex at Guiana Space Center at Kourou, French Guiana.

It is part of so-called A-Train – a flotilla composed of the Aqua, Aura, CloudSat, PARASOL and CALIPSO satellites flying in formation in low polar orbits 438 miles above Earth at an inclination of 98 degrees. Together, their overlapping science instruments give a comprehensive picture of Earth weather and climate.

Learn more:

Aura: Aura program    NASA Goddard Aura instruments    NASA Goddard Aura Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI)    NASA Goddard Aura: A Mission to Understand and Protect the Air We Breathe    NASA Goddard NASA plans for Aura    NASA Goddard Microwave Limb Sounder    NASA JPL Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer    NASA JPL Aqua: Aqua program    NASA Aqua satellite photographs    NASA Terra: Terra mission    NASA TOMS and UARS: Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometers (TOMS)    NASA Goddard Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS)    NASA Goddard Destination Earth    NASA

CloudSat: CloudSat    Colorado State University Calipso: Calipso    NASA LARC Parasol: Parasol    CNES Orbiting Carbon Observatory: OCO    Orbital Sciences EOS: NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS)    NASA Goddard Earth Observing System (EOS) program description    NASA Goddard NASA's Earth Observatory online    NASA Destination Earth - NASA's Earth Science Enterprise (ESE)    NASA STO: Terra ~ Aqua ~ Aura main page    STO

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