Mar 4 1991
From The Space Library
NASA announced its selection of Orbital Sciences Corporation (OSC), Fairfax, Virginia, for a contract to provide ocean color data. These data were to support research performed by the Laboratory of Hydrospheric Processes, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland. The contract would run for about 7.5 years, of which 2.5 years would be development time and five years of data production. The mission's scientific objective was to measure changes in ocean color that indicate where concentrations of phytoplankton and chlorophyll lie on the surface of the ocean. For global change research, measuring concentrations of phytoplankton are essential in under-standing the role of oceans in the global carbon cycle. The phytoplankton's photosynthesis stores vast amounts of carbon and understanding better how oceans store and release carbon will help understand global climate.
Commercial value of the data was the ability to pinpoint likely concentrations of fish. The mission was a further development of work done by the Coastal Zone Color Scanner, carried aboard the Nimbus-7 satellite. The interdisciplinary uses of data (oceanography, climatology) characterize NASA's Mission to Planet Earth. (NASA Release 91-37)
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