14 DAY TRIAL // NASA officials announce that the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory has finally been delivered to Japan. The GPM is the most advanced precipitation-measuring satellite ever developed by an international collaboration, and it is currently scheduled to launch in early 2014.
The spacecraft was flown to Japan aboard a US Air Force (USAF) C-5 transport aircraft, which landed at the Kitakyushu Airport on Saturday, November 23, at 10:30 pm EST (0310 GMT, November 24). Kitakyushu is located some 965 kilometers (600 miles) away from the Japanese capital, Tokyo.
GPM was assembled at the NASA Goddars Space Flight Center (GSFC), in Greenbelt, Maryland, and is the largest satellite ever constructed at this particular facility. It was packed inside a large shipping container on November 19, and sent on its way to Japan two days later.
The C-5 aircraft took off on its 11,750-kilometer (7,300-mile) journey to Japan on November 21, from the Joint Base Andrews, in Maryland. The flight stopped just once to refuel in Anchorage, Alaska.
After arriving in Japan, the GPM Core Observatory was put onto a large barge, and set on a course towards Tanegashima Island, in southern Japan. The satellite is scheduled to launch from the Tanegashima Space Center aboard an H-II delivery system, in early 2014.
NASA and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) are partners in this endeavor. The satellite will provide the most accurate measurements of global precipitations patterns ever obtained, and will help further our understanding of climate change, desertification and global warming.
“We have been building GPM hardware at Goddard for over four years. We are excited now to get the spacecraft to Tanegashima and looking forward to the launch,” GPM project manager Art Azarbarzin explains.
The spacecraft features two main instruments, the GPM Microwave Imager (GMI) and the Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR), which capture precipitations intensities and the 3D structure of rain, respectively. GPM will provide critically important baseline measurements for precipitation studies.
According to mission scientists, this satellite will be able to create a comprehensive dataset on global precipitations about 8 times per day, a capability that has never been achieved before.