The earth-observing satellites of NASA are watching us all day long! The video of the convoy roaming and zooming around our planet Earth is as thrilling as it could get. Approximately 400 miles onto the low-Earth orbit, this convoy of 18 spacecrafts are continuously capturing images and gathering data about Earth starting from its climate to its never ending oceans, the caramel-like desserts and the lush green forests. They are orbiting us every 1 ½ hour with a total of about 8 orbits in the 12 hours which elapsed in the animation.
If viewed closely, it can be seen that a majority of these flyers orbit the Earth in the north-south direction which is known as the polar orbit. This is one of the most resourceful orbits for exploring planets, moons or any such similar bodies as it facilitates the satellite to view the whole surface while the planet is rotating below. The Dawn spacecraft has formally reached Ceres today and is announced to enter a polar orbit as well.
A majority of NASA’s satellite pursues a particular kind of polar orbit which keeps them in a fixed position relative to the sun all the time, allowing them to study each spot of the Earth at the same local time every day.
A set of 4 satellites, Aura, Aqua, CALIPSO and CloudSat pass our clouds everyday around 1:30pm local time and if you look up you can see them regardless of where on Earth you are.
The satellite train nicknamed as the A-Train can be seen at the 00:07 mark in the video with almost identical orbits. Somehow these 4 satellites ended up being too close to each other, with CloudSat and CALIPSO being 12.5 seconds of each other which translates to 58 miles of each other, a secure distance as of now.
The good news is, due to this formation of flying, the 4 spacecrafts with 15 instruments amongst them have made it much easier to compare data.
Ernie Wright, an animator at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center who assisted in producing the animation said, “It’s acting like one satellite with 15 instruments onboard.”
