UARS (Validation Campaign)

The Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) was a satellite launched in 1991 by the Space Shuttle Discovery. It was 35 feet long, 15 feet in diameter, weighed 13,000 pounds, and carried 10 instruments. UARS orbited at an altitude of 375 miles with an orbital inclination of 57 degrees. Designed to operate for three years, six of its ten instruments functioned for over 14 years. UARS measured ozone and chemical compounds found in the ozone layer which affect ozone chemistry and processes. UARS also measured winds and temperatures in the stratosphere as well as the energy input from the Sun. Together, these help define the role of the upper atmosphere in climate and climate variability.

The UARS validation camapign better known as UARS Correlative Measurements Program was an initiative aimed to perform flights of stratospheric balloons coordinated in time and space with UARS overflights. As the balloons carried instruments similar to those installed onboard the satellite, the simultaneous measurements obtained by the balloons (in-situ) and the satellite (remote) over the same zone, serves to validate the data obtained from the orbit.

The worldwide effort included launches from Ft. Sumner (New Mexico), Dagget (California), Palestine (Texas) in the United States and Kiruna in Northern Sweden between 1992 and 1994.

Balloon missions which took part of the UARS validation campaign

Launch baseDateFlight DurationExperimentPayload landing place or cause of the failure
Dagget (CA)4/9/1991---UV O3 PHOTOMETER40 Miles WSW of Socorro, New Mexico, US
Fort Sumner (NM)10/1/1991---UV O3 PHOTOMETER37 miles SE of Liberal, Kansas, US
Dagget (CA)2/20/1992---UV O3 PHOTOMETER20 Miles N of Woodward, Oklahoma, US
Fort Sumner (NM)5/29/1992---FIRS-2 (far infrared Fourier transform spectrometer) + UV O3 PHOTOMETER18 miles S of Gallup, New Mexico, US
Fort Sumner (NM)9/29/19928 hFIRS-2 (far infrared Fourier transform spectrometer) + UV O3 PHOTOMETER14 miles WSW of Canadian, Texas, US
Dagget (CA)4/3/199310 hMKIV INTERFEROMETER + UV O3 PHOTOMETER + SLS + FILOS25 Miles SE of Artesia, New Mexico, US
Fort Sumner (NM)5/31/1993---IBEX (Infrared Balloon-Borne Experiment)20 miles W of Belen, New Mexico, US
Fort Sumner (NM)9/25/1993---MKIV INTERFEROMETER + UV O3 PHOTOMETER23 miles SE of Abilene, Texas, US
Fort Sumner (NM)5/22/199422 hMKIV INTERFEROMETER + FIRS-2 (far infrared Fourier transform spectrometer) + UV O3 PHOTOMETER8 miles SW of Datil, New Mexico, US
Fort Sumner (NM)10/9/1994---UV O3 PHOTOMETER20 miles SE of Childress, Texas, US

External Links

UARS project - at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center