NASA's Aqua Earth observer shipped to launch site
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Posted: February 26, 2002

  Aqua
The Aqua satellite is prepared to depart TRW's plant for Vandenberg. Photo: NASA-GSFC
 
The next satellite in NASA's Earth Observing System, the Aqua spacecraft, was delivered to Vandenberg Air Force Base in California early Monday to begin final preparations for launch in April aboard a Delta 2 rocket.

Aqua made a 170-mile journey to Vandenberg from its manufacturing plant at TRW's Space Park in Redondo Beach. The craft was nestled into a special shipping container, placed in the cargo hold of a tractor-trailer rig and convoyed with a police escort up the California coastline.

The 6,837-pound satellite will undergo its pre-launch preps inside the Integrated Processing Facility at Vandenberg's Space Launch Complex-6. The facility, now commercially run by Spaceport Systems International, was originally built to ready payloads for launch aboard space shuttles from that site.

Aqua, which is Latin for "water," carries a sophisticated suite of instruments to collect measurements of rainfall, snow, sea ice, temperature, humidity, vegetation, soil moisture and clouds as part of NASA's long-term, coordinated research study of changes in the global environment.

Aqua's instruments will gather important data about global energy and water cycles, enabling scientists to monitor climate variations and trends.

"The entire Aqua team is very excited as we are approaching our launch date," said Phil Sabelhaus, Aqua Project Manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "We're excited to see all our efforts come to fruition and look forward to a successful launch."

Liftoff is scheduled for April 18 from Vandenberg's Space Launch Complex 2-West aboard a Boeing Delta 2 rocket. The launch window that day extends from 0954:58 to 1004:58 GMT (5:54:58-6:04:58 a.m. EST).

Aqua
An artist's concept of Aqua in orbit. Photo: NASA-GSFC
 
"We're excited to see Aqua moving forward on its journey," said Tim Hannemann, TRW Space & Electronics president and chief executive. "Aqua's instruments will gather important data about global energy and water cycles, so scientists can improve our knowledge of climate. With Aqua's mission success as their primary focus, TRW and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center have combined their extensive experience developing science spacecraft to produce a highly capable observatory."

Aqua was built as part of TRW's T-300 spacecraft family, designed to provide low-jitter, precision pointing and longevity for scientific and remote sensing payloads.

TRW is also building a sibling to Aqua, called Aura, which will study the Earth's ozone, air quality and climate with an entirely different instrument suite.