Aqua, Latin for water, is a NASA Earth Science satellite mission named for the large amount of information that the mission is collecting about the Earth's water cycle. The Aqua mission is a part of the NASA-centered international Earth Observin System (EOS). Aqua was formerly named EOS PM, signifying its afternoon equatorial crossing time.
Aqua was launched on May 4, 2002, and has six Earth-observing instruments on board, collecting a variety of global data sets. Aqua was originally developed for a six-year design life but has now far exceeded that original goal and is expected to be operating into successfully into the early 2020s. It continues transmitting high-quality data from four of its six instruments, AIRS, AMSU, CERES, and MODIS, and reduced quality data from a fifth instrument, AMSR-E. The sixth Aqua instrument, HSB, collected approximately nine months of high quality data but failed in February 2003.
Instruments:
Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS)
Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU-A)
Humidity Sounder for Brazil (HSB)
Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS (AMSR-E)
Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)
Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES)
Collecting information about the Earth’s water cycle including evaporation from the oceans, water vapor in the atmosphere, clouds, precipitation, soil moisture, sea ice, land ice, and snow cover on the land and ice. Additional variables being measured include radiative energy fluxes, aerosols, vegetation cover on the land, phytoplankton and dissolved organic matter in the oceans, and air, land, and water temperatures.
