Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Meteor 3 TOMS Press Kit
Meteor 3 TOMS Press Kit
Meteor 3 TOMS Press Kit
...
T
PUBLIC AF'ATRS CONTACTS:
Brian Dunbar
Office of Space Science and Applications
NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
(Phone: 2OZ453-1547)
Debra J. Rahn
International Relations Division
NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
(Phone: 2OZ453-8455)
Dolores Beasley
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
(Phone: 301/286-2806)
Yury Kazakov
International Division
Hydromet, Moscow,
(Telex: 411-117 RUMS SU)
(Phone: (7095)252-20-83)
Viacheslav Grigrev
The All-Union Research Institute
of Electromechanics (VNIIEM)
(Phone: (7095) 925-18-64;925-32-11)
T ' 1 T -
RELEASE: 91-127
The first flight of a NASA ozone instrument on a Soviet spacecraft will occur in
August when NASA's Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) is flown on a
Meteor-3 meteorological satellite launched aboard a Cyclone rocket also provided
by the Soviet Union.
The Meteor-3A'OMS two-year mission, planned for launch Aug. 15, will make it
possible t o continue monitoring global ozone levels by measuring the total ozone
content in the Earth's atmosphere. Since the first TOMS was launched aboard
NASA's Nimbus-7 satellite in 1978, it has provided reliable, high-resolution daily
mapping of global total ozone.
The Meteor-S/TOMSinstrument is identical t o the Nimbus-7 instrument in
terms of optics and performance. By launching in August, Meteor-3/TOMS will be
in place t o obseive the formation of the Antarctic ozone "hole" in September and
October. The ozone "hole" is a large area of intense ozone depletion over the
Antarctic continent that typically occurs between late August and early October
and typically breaks up in mid-November.
On June 15, the spacecraft was shipped t o the launch site a t the Plesetsk
Cosmodrome. TOMS arrived in Plesetsk in early August. NASA is supplying the
TOMS instrument and is providing on-board storage for science data. The
U.S.S.R. State Committee for Hydrometeorology (Hydromet) is providing the
launch and launch vehicle, mission operations and TOMS housekeeping data.
After launch, a Moscow team in the Flight Control Center will control the
commands t o the spacecraft and every two weeks, personnel from the Goddard
Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, Md., will send via computer the command
sequences for TOMS operations t o the U.S.S.R. Central Aerological Observatory.
Data will be downlinked to receiving stations at Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops
Island, Va., and Obninsk, U.S.S.R., with data analysis performed by NASA and
Hydromet. The data will be archived at the National Space Science Data Center,
located at Goddard, and a t the Central Aerological Observatory of Hydromet,
located a t Dolgoprudny, Moscow Region.
The project is taking place under the 1987 U.S./U.S.S.R. agreement on
"Cooperation in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space for Peaceful Purposes," as
amended, May 1988, and according to an implementation agreement signed by
Hydromet and NASA in 1990.
The program management representatives for the mission are Dr. Nikolai
Petrov of Hydromet, Moscow, and George Esenwein of NASA Headquarters,
Washington, D.C. The technical managers are Vladimir Adasko, Director of the
3
All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Electromechanics, for the Meteor
satellite, and Charles Cote, Goddard Space Flight Center, for the TOMS
instrument.
- end -
f
"he Plesetsk Launch Facility
The Plesetsk Cosmodrome is located in the Northern part of the USSR near
Archangel. Over the last 20 years, the Meteor satellites have been launched from
this complex.
Meteor-3
Meteor satellites are designed t o conduct operational meteorological
observations, environmental monitoring and scientific investigation. Hydromet is
working on creation of a new generation, space-based meteorological network
using the Meteor spacecraft. Meteor-3A'OMS is one of the stages of this program.
The instruments carried by the Meteor-3 spacecraft are:
T N Camera Clouds
I/R Imager Clouds (nighuday)
Visible Imager Clouds (day)
I/RSounder Temperature (atmosphere)
The TOMS instrument is 26.4 x 13.2 x 19.6 inches (66 x 33 x 49 cm) and weighs
61.6 pounds (28 kg). At the altitude of the Meteor-3 satellite, TOMS' spatial
resolution is 38.4 miles (62 km) directly beneath the instrument.
5
Communications and Data Handling
The observational data from the Meteor-SA'OMS mission will be transmitted
separately to the United States and the Soviet Union. If either the NASA or
Hydromet station misses a satellite pass, the missed data will be provided by the
other nation.
Once on the ground, the data will undergo separate analysis by scientists in
each country. NASA will produce instrument calibration data sets for production
of archival data.
In the United States, TOMS data will be transmitted from the satellite to a
receiving station at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va. From
there it will be sent over data lines t o GSFC for processing and analysis.
In the Soviet Union, TOMS data will be received by the a ground station in
Cbniml.;, KtlluzEsky Region, and will be transmitted by radio t o CAO Hydromet,
Dolgoprudny. The CAO will process, analyze, archive and exchange TOMS data
with NASA.
US.-SovietCaoperationin Space
The Meteor-3/TOMS mission continues bilateral cooperation that began in the
early 1960s with agreements on meteorology, communications, magnetic surveys
and life sciences. In 1971, the two nations began exchanging biomedical data.
U.S.-Soviet space cooperation was highlighted by the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz Test Project
in which spacecraft from the two countries docked and orbited. the Earth together.
Under the current 1987 space agreement, the United States and Soviet Union have
Joint Working Groups in five space science disciplines: space biology and
medicine, solar system exploration, astronomy and astrophysics, solar-terrestrial
physics and Earth sciences.
6
Other planned flights of scientific instruments on cooperative missions include:
Soviet KONUS Gamma-Rav Burst Instrument: NASA has accepted in
principle a Soviet proposal t o fly a gamma-ray burst instrument, KONUS, on the
U.S. WIND spacecraft, scheduled for launch in 1992.
NASA ParticiDation in Soviet Astrophvsics Mission; NASA and the U.S.S.R.
have agreed in principle to fly a U.S. x-ray All Sky Monitor and an x-ray
polarimeter on the Soviet Spectrum-X-Gamma high-energy astrophysics mission
in 1993/94.
1 -7 -
Meteor-3ROMS Mission Management
NASA
Headauartere
Richard Truly Administrator
James R. Thompson Deputy Administrator
T
Vladimir M. Zaharov Deputy Head
Nikolai N. Petrov Deputy Head of Main Department,
Program Manager, Meteor-3/TOMS
Alexander V. Karpov Head of Main Department
Yury E. Kazakov Deputy Head, International
Department of USSR Goskomgidromet
^.
T 7 -
Nikolai P. Elansky Head of Laboratory, Institute of Physics
of the Atmosphere
Scientific-IndustrialAssociation, Planeta
V. V. Aksenov General Director
Aleksey M. Volkov Deputy of General Director
10