Active Sensing of CO2 Emissions over Nights, Days and Seasons (ASCENDS) Mission Studies
Abstract
ASCENDS is one of the National Research Council's Decadal Survey Tier II missions. It will provide improved ability to predict/model long-term changes in the climate cycle based on the understanding of the natural processes driving the variability of natural carbon sources and sink, and the transport of carbon through the atmosphere. NASA's GSFC, LaRC and JPL are conducting mission studies to determine spacecraft and launch vehicle accommodations. These mission studies will determine the feasibility of flying the ASCENDS instrument on a commercially available spacecraft bus and launch vehicle. Conceptual instrument parameters include a mass of 500 kilograms, power of 1100 Watts and volume of 2.5 meters by 2 meters by 2 meters. Preliminary results have shown that the Falcon 9 and the Atlas V are compatible launch vehicles. Multiple commercially available spacecraft buses on the Rapid Spacecraft Development Office's (RSDO) catalogue also appear to be compatible with the instruments parameters. In this paper, we present the details of the ASCENDS instrument and mission constraints and the results of our mission studies.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2012
- Bibcode:
- 2012AGUFM.A53H0223J
- Keywords:
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- 0394 ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE / Instruments and techniques;
- 1616 GLOBAL CHANGE / Climate variability