G. Paules et M. Luther, NASA's Earth Science program - Increasing science opportunity and payoff through small satellites, ACT ASTRONA, 46(2-6), 2000, pp. 61-64
By now it is well known that small satellites are the future for NASA's Spa
ce and Earth Science missions as we implement the Administrator's challenge
for "better/faster/cheaper" missions. Though the Earth Science Enterprise
is motivated to reduce overall program costs there are several other drivin
g factors. First, the desire for more frequent science missions. Typically,
with each mission scientists learn more and desire to refine and even comp
letely refocus efforts based on the new knowledge. Second, the desire to re
duce overall program risk by minimizing losses due to launch, spacecraft, o
r single instrument failures. And, third, the need to exploit the major adv
ances in technology itself-especially in microelectronics, high performance
computing, and sophisticated end-to-end information system concepts
By objective NASA's Earth Science program must provide long-term data sets
of climate-related and geophysical variables. At the same time it must prov
ide for experimental missions to analyze Earth system processes for the fir
st time. Many of these science investigations require that measurements usi
ng different remote sensing techniques be made simultaneously. In the past
this has resulted in a number of instruments gathered on a single, large pl
atform such as that for EOS AM-I. ESE has accepted the challenge to accompl
ish these objectives through the use of smaller satellites, highly advanced
instrument technologies, and sophisticated operational concepts. (C) 2000
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