EARTH SYSTEMS DATA displayed on DVG technologies are sourced principally from National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) orbiting satellites. NASA (and its international partners) operates several Earth-observing satellites that closely follow on the same orbital “track.” This coordinated group of satellites, constituting a significant subset of NASA’s current operating major satellite missions, is called the Afternoon Constellation, or the “A-Train,” for short.
Six satellites currently fly in the A-Train: Aura, GCOM-W1 (Glory), CALIPSO, CloudSat, Aqua, Aura and the Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 (OCO-2). A-Train satellites are in a polar orbit crossing the equator northbound at about 1:30 p.m. local time within seconds to minutes of each other. This allows near-simultaneous observations of the Biosphere in order to aid the scientific community in advancing knowledge of Earth Systems science for the benefit of the public.
The A-Train Data Depot (ATDD) has been developed to process, archive and allow access to data from this constellation of satellites in order to visualize, analyze, correlate and distribute measurements from A-Train instruments. NASA’s Goddard Earth Sciences (GES) Data and Information Services Center (DISC) manages the ATDD portal to provide easy on-line data access and services for scientific, commercial and educational use. See: http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/atdd/data-holdings.
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