Jim Cast
Headquarters, Washington          Feb. 22, 2002
(Phone: 202/358-1779)

Alan Buis
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
(Phone: 818/354-0474)

RELEASE: 02-33

NASA'S QUIKSCAT SPACECRAFT TURNS OPERATIONAL

     In a move to improve global weather forecasts and 
ultimately save lives and property, the United States and 
Europe have incorporated wind speed and direction data from 
NASA's Quick Scatterometer spacecraft -- also known as 
Quikscat -- into their operational global weather analysis 
and forecast systems.

Armed with data from Quikscat, forecasters can now predict 
hazardous weather events over the oceans as much as six to 12 
hours earlier. Launched June 19, 1999, the Quikscat 
spacecraft operates in a Sun-synchronous, 80-kilometer (497-
mile) near-polar orbit, circling Earth every 100 minutes, 
taking approximately 400,000 measurements over 93 percent of 
Earth's surface every day.

In recent years data from the Quikscat scatterometer, 
developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), 
Pasadena, Calif., have proven useful in improving forecasts 
of extreme wind events, such as hurricanes, and in monitoring 
longer-term climatic effects such as El Nino. Quikscat's 
SeaWinds scatterometer instrument is a specialized microwave 
radar that continuously measures both the speed and direction 
of winds near the ocean surface in all weather conditions.

Participants in the Quikscat program include the National 
Centers for Environmental Prediction, a branch of the 
National Weather Service, Washington, and the European Centre 
for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, Reading, England. These 
organizations' decision to assimilate and turn Quikscat data 
into operational information culminates an intense inter-
agency and international cooperative effort among NASA, the 
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminstration (NOAA) and 
European countries to demonstrate and validate Quikscat's 
potential impact on weather forecasting.

"Our implementation of Quikscat data has provided another 
useful data source for improved surface wind forecasts," said 
Stephen Lord, director of the National Centers for 
Environmental Prediction's Environmental Modeling Center, 
which developed the Quikscat data-processing in collaboration 
with NASA and NOAA Satellite Services. 

"The use of Quikscat data to improve weather forecasts 
underscores the value of the mission beyond the scientific 
research community," said Dr. Michael Freilich, Quikscat 
principal investigator and a professor at Oregon State 
University, Corvallis. "Realizing the full potential of 
Quikscat data is possible only because of a series of unique 
collaborations. NASA researchers and engineers worked 
together to develop and calibrate the instrument and 
algorithms. NOAA personnel, in partnership with NASA, enable 
rapid delivery of near-real-time spacecraft data to forecast 
centers. There also are the teams of meteorologists who are 
developing and refining computer programs that incorporate 
the data into models and display measurements for 
forecasters."

Helen Wood, director of NOAA's Office of Satellite Data 
Processing and Distribution, said Quikscat data would 
positively impact NOAA's weather forecasting and storm 
warnings. "Quikscat data will help our forecasters more 
accurately determine the paths and intensities of severe 
winter storms, tropical storms and hurricanes, which will 
save lives and property," she said. "The data are also used 
by climate change researchers and commercial shipping 
interests."

The incorporation of Quikscat data was one of several recent 
upgrades made to the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather 
Forecasts' operational system. Cumulatively, the upgrades 
have resulted in a robust improvement in forecasts of 
atmospheric conditions over the Southern Hemisphere and in 
the upper atmosphere. Their ability to forecast tropical 
cyclone tracks has also been enhanced.  

JPL manages Quikscat for NASA's Office of Earth Science, 
Washington. JPL also built the scatterometer instrument and 
provides ground science-processing systems. NASA's Goddard 
Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., managed development of 
the satellite, designed and built by Ball Aerospace & 
Technology Corp., Boulder, Colo.  

NASA's Earth Science Enterprise is a long-term research and 
technology program to examine Earth's land, oceans, 
atmosphere, ice and life as a total integrated system. JPL is 
a division of the California Institute of Technology in 
Pasadena. 

More information is available at:

http://winds.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/quikscat/quikindex.html

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