| definition
| - The Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) is a
Department of Defense (DoD) program run by the Air Force Space
and Missle Systems Center (SMC). The DMSP designs, builds,
launches, and maintains satellites monitoring the
meteorological, oceanographic, and solar-terrestrial physics
environments.
Each DMSP satellite has a 101 minute, sun-synchronous near-polar
orbit at an altitude of 830km above the surface of the
earth. The visible and infrared sensors (OLS) collect images
across a 3000km swath, providing global coverage twice per
day. The combination of day/night and dawn/dusk satellites
allows monitoring of global information such as clouds every 6
hours. The microwave imager (MI) and sounders (T1, T2) cover one
half the width of the visible and infrared swath. These
instruments cover polar regions at least twice and the
equatorial region once per day. The space environment sensors
(J4, M, IES) record along-track plasma densities, velocities,
composition and drifts.
The data from the DMSP satellites are received and used at
operational centers continuously. The data are sent to the
National Geophysical Data Center's Solar Terrestrial Physics
Division (NGDC/STP) by the Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA) for
creation of an archive.
Additional information available at
http://dmsp.ngdc.noaa.gov/dmsp.html
[Summary provided by NOAA]
Group: Platform_Details
Entry_ID: DMSP
Group: Platform_Identification
Platform_Category: Earth Observation Satellites
Platform_Series_or_Entity: DMSP (Defense Meteorological Satellite Program)
Short_Name: DMSP
Long_Name: Defense Meteorological Satellite Program
End_Group
Group: Platform_Associated_Instruments
Short_Name: GAMMA RADIATION DETECTOR
End_Group
Group: Orbit
Orbit_Type: LEO > Low Earth Orbit > Polar Sun-Synchronous
End_Group
Creation_Date: 2007-09-12
Online_Resource: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/dmsp/index.html
Sample_Image: http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/Images/misc_missions/dmsp_sat.gif
Group: Platform_Logistics
Launch_Date: 1972-12-01
Primary_Sponsor: NOAA
End_Group
End_Group (en)
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