NOAA-15 (designated NOAA-K before launch) is one of the NASA-provided TIROS series of weather forecasting satellite run by NOAA. It was launched on May 13, 1998, and is currently operational, in a sun-synchronous orbit, 807 km above the Earth, orbiting every 101 minutes. It hosts the AMSU-A and AMSU-B instruments, the AVHRR and High Resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder (HIRS/3) instruments, as well as a Space Environment Monitor (SEM/2).
Instruments: AMSU-A (Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit - A) AMSU-B (Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit - B) AVHRR/3 (Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer/3) HIRS/3 (High Resolution Infra Red Sounder/3) S&RSAT (Search & Rescue Satellite-Aided Tracking System) DCS/s (Data Collection System/2) SEM/MEPED (SEM/Medium energy proton detector) SEM/TED (SEM/Total Energy Detector)
Meteorology, agriculture and forestry, environmental monitoring, climatology, physical oceanography, volcanic eruption monitoring, ice and snow cover, total ozone studies, space environment, solar flux analysis, search and rescue
