Oct 17 1975
From The Space Library
More than 1000 instrumented platforms either floating buoys or balloons-were being used to provide information on tropical and polar weather and ocean and ice conditions, NASA announced.
The platforms would transmit data from their sites to NASA's Nimbus 6 meteorological research satellite, launched 12 June 1975, which would record and play back the data on command to ground stations around the world. The stations would then disseminate the information to investigators in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Norway, South Africa, and the U.S. Platforms would be located in such remote areas as the South Pole, Indian Ocean, Africa, Samoa, and the Arctic.
The National Center for Atmospheric Research was releasing more than 400 balloons to altitudes up to 14 km from American Samoa, Ghana, and Ascension I. to study the atmosphere in the tropics. About 50 low-level balloons were being released to an altitude of 750 m from the Seychelles island group, just north of the Malagasy Republic, by the Laboratoire de Meteorologie Dynamique in Paris to study the airsea interface to determine its effect on monsoons in India. About 30 ice buoys were being placed in the Arctic and Antarctic, one only 45 m from the South Pole, as part of a major U.S. government project to understand ice packs, icebergs, and weather patterns near the poles. Scientists from the Norsk Polarinstitut in Norway were deploying four drifting buoys to help chart ice drift in the Greenland area. (NASA Release 75-271)
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