Anonymous ID: 0db32a Feb. 16, 2023, 1:43 p.m. No.18360247   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>0288 >>0401 >>0592 >>0812 >>0874 >>0912

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aqua_(satellite)

 

Aqua (EOS PM-1) is a NASA scientific research satellite in orbit around the Earth, studying the precipitation, evaporation, and cycling of water. It is the second major component of the Earth Observing System (EOS) preceded by Terra (launched 1999) and followed by Aura (launched 2004).

 

The name "Aqua" comes from the Latin word for water. The satellite was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base on May 4, 2002, aboard a Delta II rocket. Aqua operated in a sun-synchronous orbit as the third in the satellite formation called the "A Train" with several other satellites (OCO-2, the Japanese GCOM W1, PARASOL, CALIPSO, Cloud Sat, and Aura) for most of its first 20 years; but in January 2022 Aqua left the A-Train (as Cloud Sat, CALIPSO and PARASOL had already done) when, due to its fuel limitations, it transitioned to a free-drift mode, wherein its equatorial crossing time is slowly drifting to later times, from its tightly controlled orbit.[1]