2014 AMS Annual Meeting

NASA has nine (9) satellites currently in formulation and development, with eight scheduled to launch before the end of 2017.  These include GPM, SMAP, and OCO-2 (all in 2014), SAGE III (2015), ICESat-2 and CYGNSS (2016), and GRACE FO and OCO-3 (2017), and SWOT (2020). These nine will join the pantheon of existing US and international weather, climate and research satellites. In addition to these missions, NASA has recently been given additional sustained earth observing measurement responsibilities. chartered by the Administration with the responsibility for defining and implementing, in coordination with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the nation’s Sustained Land Imaging Program to follow the currently flying Landsat & and Landsat 8 (formerly known as LDCM) missions. And NASA has been directed to continue the fundamental climate measurements of solar irradiance, earth radiation budget, and ozone profiling to extend the data record into the future. How will NASA be meeting these demanding measurement objectives? NASA’s Earth Science Division is working now, in collaboration with NOAA, the USGS, DOE and international partners, and with our industrial community, on science studies, technology investments, and mission definition studies to prepare the next generation of satellites and observations for launch in 2018, 2019 and soon thereafter. At this Town Hall meeting we will present the progress and plans for these next generation missions, including mission concepts from the 2007 NRC Decadal Survey (http://science.nasa.gov/earth-science/decadal-surveys/) and from the 2010 NASA Climate Plan (http://science.nasa.gov/earth-science/). We will identify opportunities for greater interaction with the NASA missions already in formulation and development, as well as opportunities for future collaboration as we move forward with this next generation of missions and measurements.

For further information, please contact Stephen Volz ([email protected]).