Dr. Roy Spencer reports that AMSR-E shut down today, too much torque on the rotating element, and all it needs to keep going is a lube job.
AMSR-E Ends 9+ Years of Global Observations
by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
UPDATE #1: See update at end.
The Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for the Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) was automatically spun down to its designed 4 rpm safe condition last night after recent increases in the amount of power required to keep it spinning at its nominal 40 rpm were beginning to cause noticeable jitter in NASA’s Aqua satellite.
The instrument has over 480 pounds of spinning mass, and the lubricant in the bearing assembly gradually deteriorates over time. This deterioration has been monitored, and automatic shutdown procedures have been in place for years if the amount of torque required to keep AMSR-E spinning exceeded a certain threshold.
Starting about October 1, AMSR-E was causing yaw vibrations in the Aqua satellite attitude which were increasingly exceeding the +/- 25 arcsecond limits that are required by other instruments on the spacecraft. Last night, the 4.5 Newton-meter torque limit was apparently exceeded, and the instrument was automatically spun down to 4 rpm.
At this point it appears that this event likely ends the useful life of AMSR-E, which has been continuously gathering global data on a variety of parameters from sea ice to precipitation to sea surface temperature. It’s 9+ year lifetime exceeded its 6 year design life.
AMSR-E was provided to NASA by Japan’s Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and was built by Mitsubishi Electric Company. It was launched aboard the Aqua satellite from Vandenberg AFB on May 2, 2002. It has been an extremely successful experiment, and has gathered a huge quantity of data that will be revealing secrets of weather and climate as scientific research with the archived data continues in the coming years.
As the U.S. Science Team Leader for AMSR-E, I would like to congratulate and thank all of those who made AMSR-E such a success: JAXA, MELCO, NASA, the University of Alabama in Huntsville, the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, and the U.S. and Japanese Science Teams who developed the algorithms that turned the raw data collected by AMSR-E into so many useful products.
The good news is that AMSR2, a slightly modified and improved version of AMSR-E, will be launched early next year on Japan’s GCOM-W satellite, and will join Aqua and the other satellites in NASA’s A-Train constellation of Earth observation satellites in their twice-daily, 1:30 a.m./p.m. sun-synchronous polar orbit. It is my understanding that those data will be shared in near-real time with U.S. agencies.
We had hoped that AMSR-E would provide at least one year over data overlap with the new AMSR2 instrument. It remains to be determined – and is only speculation on my part – whether there might be an attempt to gather some additional data from AMSR-E later to help fulfill this cross-calibration activity with AMSR2. [The Aqua satellite can easily accommodate the extra torque imparted to the spacecraft, and last night’s spin-down of AMSR-E was mostly to eliminate the very slight chance of sudden failure of the AMSR-E bearing assembly which could have caused the Aqua satellite to go into an uncontrolled and unrecoverable tumble.]
Again, I want to thank and congratulate all of those who made AMSR-E such a huge success!
UPDATE #1: As of early this morning, the torque required to keep AMSR-E spinning at 4 rpm was too large for its own momentum compensation mechanism to handle, with excessive amounts of momentum being dumped to the spacecraft. As a result, the instrument has now been spun down to 0 rpm. The satellite has shed the excessive momentum, and is operating normally, as are the other instruments aboard the spacecraft (MODIS, CERES, and AIRS).
I guess I’ll be having coffee with MAISE for a while.
http://nsidc.org/data/masie/index.html
Does this mean that Bremen’s recent record low ice result is spurious?
Wanted: Satellite Engineer. Must have own (launch) vehicle.
RIP AMSR-E
A sensor shut down because of a lube job?
Who knows some wind mill application could solve the problem for the next satellite.
http://www.availon.eu/en/wtg-optimization/gesupRsup-optimization/upgrades/permanent-lubrication.html
Or any other suitable solution.
Just address the problem.
Can’t you ask the Russians or the Chinese to go up there with a can of Selley’s Ezy Glide?
I Don’t know why they couln’t have used magnetic bearings with no friction surfaces at all ?
Still we do have the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer(AVHRR/3) on NOAA-19,
can’t that be used to gather sea ice data from both poles ? Channel number 3A – Resolution at Nadir 1.09 km – Wavelength (um)1.58 – 1.64 – Typical Use = Snow and ice detection
Currently, NOAA is operating five polar orbiters. A new series of polar orbiters, with improved sensors, began with the launch of NPP in May 2011 and NPOESS-C1 in September 2014. The newest, NOAA-19, was launched February 06, 2009. NOAA-18, NOAA-17, NOAA-16 and NOAA-15 all continue transmitting data as stand-by satellites. NOAA-19 is classified as the “operational” satellite. See The NEDSIS Website for further details.
National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS)
NOAA’s Geostationary and Polar-Orbiting Weather Satellites
http://noaasis.noaa.gov/NOAASIS/ml/genlsatl.html
Details of NOAA-19 instrumentation
Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer – AVHRR
http://noaasis.noaa.gov/NOAASIS/ml/avhrr.html
The Russians have some satellites too don’t they ?
Then there’s the NPP Orbiter. NPP will be launched on a United Launch Alliance Delta II 7920 expendable launch vehicle. The Delta II first stage was hoisted into position on the pad at NASA’s Space Launch Complex 2 on July 20. The nine solid rocket boosters were attached, and the second stage was hoisted atop the first stage. Launch vehicle testing is under way.
The NPP spacecraft is scheduled to move to the pad and be mated with the rocket on Oct. 7. Launch is scheduled for Oct. 27 2011, during a 9-minute and 10-second launch window from 5:48:01 to 5:57:11 a.m. EDT. The Delta II will place the satellite into a 512-mile high circular polar orbit.
Among its intruments are the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), VIIRS, a scanning radiometer, collects visible and infrared imagery and radiometric measurements of the land, atmosphere, cryosphere, and oceans. It extends and improves upon a series of measurements initiated by the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). VIIRS data is used to measure cloud and aerosol properties, ocean color, sea and land surface temperature, ice motion and temperature, fires, and Earth’s albedo. Climatologists use VIIRS data to improve our understanding of global climate change.
Details of this instrument:
http://jointmission.gsfc.nasa.gov/viirs.html
Why then must we wait until “early next year” for Japan’s GCOM-W satellite, with its AMSR2 “a slightly modified and improved version of AMSR-E”, to be launched, when we already have the AVHRR on the NOAA-19 (Aqua) and in just a few weeks will have the new and improved and very shiney VIIRS aboard the NPP ? Am I missing something ?
This looks like an excellent opportunity for one of the small, lean startup space companies. You don’t need much more than a versatile, well-stocked and highly mobile orbiting mini-satellite with generalized functionality to perform such services. Imagine one of the half-dozen or so company getting a permanent roving jack-of-all-trades orbiting device that packs micro-robotic machinery and miscellaneous supplies (including most likely rolls of duct tape, bulk wire, a supply of silly putty, generic replacement electronics and solar panels, and vacuum-grade superglue), with maneuvering capability that can get it into close enough proximity to sensitive orbiting equipment to carry out such repairs without a high probability of doing more damage than good. In this world, SMALL is good.
I envision a tiny thing the size of a fat man on a bicycle, with several tethered specialized semiautonomous highly maneuverable robotic devices capable of a large array of service. “Fat Man” can receive supplies from periodic visits from small earth-based launch vehicles, and is capable of moving into both high and low orbits, self-repair and both autonomous and earth-based navigation and “docking” procedures with a wide variety of satellites. Or perhaps several “Fat Men” that can rendezvous with an orbiting base that stocks such supplies with regular deliveries from below.
Clearly this is something that is needed NOW, and I believe it could be assembled largely from off-the-shelf equipment, a few cutting-edge robotic devices, and the sort of launch platforms being developed by these companies. Imagining what NASA etc would likely pay to have someone come and fix their satellites on demand, I can’t help but think this would be a money-maker for a reasonably ambitious for-profit company.
re: Axel am I missing something
As far as I know the satellites you reference do not use microwaves which are superior for determining differences between clouds,snow and ice. This was AMSR-E’s advantage. But I’m only just learning this stuff, I could be wrong here.
@ur momisugly dave in Canmore
Well the AMSR-E instrument was made in 2002, and the AVHRR/3 instrument made in 2009, so I assume that it will be more advanced, since 7 years is a long time in electronics development. Then the VIIRS is brand new and made just this year, and specially designed to look at these very parameters you mention with increased accuracy. See the linked pages above at NOAA.
This is what baffled me. Such a hullaballoo about this old orbiting dustbin. To use an analogy, would you kick up such a fuss about an old PC from 2002, with its Pentium 4 Processor, 2GHz single CPU 32Bit Chip and 42 millionTransistors, when you could have already, a Core 2 Processor, 3 GHz Quad CPU (Yorkfield) 64Bit and with 820 Million Transistors, and then just in a few weeks you can have instead, a Core i7 Processor, 3.3 GHz Six-Core CPU (Gulftown) 64Bit and with 1170 million Transistors.
I suppose for the regular user of that (now) pile of expensive scrap, it is like an old friend that they don’t want to let go. For me however I just cannot wait to see the results from the new and improved and very shiney VIIRS aboard the NPP. I hear that the resolution is so good that we shall even be able to see Pen Haddow struggling across the ice floes with his sled next year, and how we shall laugh at his feeble antics. Charles Monnett will even be able to count the Bowhead whales from the comfort of his own prison cell perhaps. ……. Maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration 😉
OK so if it is Sea ice you are worried about then images are available currently & historically from the NOAA-N Prime (NOAA-19), and it’s predecessors, NOAA-15 NOAA-16 NOAA-17 NOAA-18, all of which are still up, and all have the AVHRR instrument in one of its 3 development stages.
The main products produced by the National Ice Center (NIC).
Products on Demand (wideband connection required)
An interactive display of current daily and weekly products. (Requires Silverlight plug-in : MSIE)
Example Arctic Sea-ice image for today …
http://i52.tinypic.com/sm91k9.jpg
NIC Applet website to choose your own images, download data and so forth …
http://www.natice.noaa.gov/products/products_on_demand.html