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Glory .
Special thanks to the Glory Science Team for making this publication possible.
Introducing Aerosols.................................................................................. 6
The Atmosphere.......................................................................................... 8 .
The Atmosphere......................................................................................... 8
The Sun..................................................................................................... 10 .
The Sun.................................................................................................... 10
Glory’s Instruments...................................................................................
Glory’s Instruments.................................................................................. 12 12 .
PostPost Launch...............................................................................................
Launch............................................................................................. 16 16 .
NextNext
Generation Climate
Generation Satellites.
Climate .......................................................... 17 17
Satellites............................................................ .
Glory’s Science
Glory’s Team.
Science ............................................................................... 18 18
Team................................................................................. .
Glossary .................................................................................................. 19 19
Glossary..................................................................................................... .
The Energy Budget .
Credit: NASA
Above: About a quarter of Energy in, energy out: The balance between the Such amounts may seem small, yet even
incoming solar radiation
gets reflected back to
two allows life to thrive on Earth. But that increases on this scale could have profound
space by the atmosphere balance—between incoming radiation from consequences for humans. Rising sea levels,
and a quarter gets ab- the sun and outgoing radiation reflected and changing ocean currents, and fiercer storms,
sorbed. The rest reaches
the surface, where it is ab-
emitted by Earth—is extraordinarily delicate. coupled with altered cloudiness, rainfall pat-
sorbed by land and water. terns, and changing growing seasons are real
Ramp up the amount of energy trapped in the possibilities confronting our home planet as
atmosphere only a small amount, and rising the climate changes.
temperatures could evaporate the oceans and
leave a scorching Earth that’s reminiscent of With such high stakes, understanding Earth’s
Venus. Dial it back just a notch and Earth energy budget—the balance of incom-
could become a freezing world like Mars. ing and outgoing radiation—is of critical
importance. Indeed, in the last few decades,
Earth is a long way from either of these scientists have gone to great lengths to
extremes, but our planet’s climate is slowly understand and quantify what happens to
changing. During the last century, global the solar radiation that constantly floods
average temperatures at the surface have Earth’s atmosphere and helps drive the climate
increased 0.7°C (1.3°F). And climate models system. Using satellites, aircraft, ground-
estimate that temperatures will increase by based sensors, and a host of other scientific
another 1.1°C to 6.4°C (2.0°F to 11.5°F) tools, researchers have determined the out-
during the twenty-first century. lines of Earth’s energy budget.
Though it may seem counterintuitive that surface immediately below. Other aerosols,
objects as minute as aerosols influence the especially black carbon, absorb some of
climate, it’s become clear in recent decades the incoming radiation and can warm the
that these airborne particulates have an atmosphere. However, accurate quantita-
outsized impact. tive knowledge of direct aerosol effects,
and especially the role of human-made
Aerosols can affect climate directly by
aerosols, remains elusive.
scattering and absorbing incoming sun-
light—or radiation reflected by the surface Aerosols can also have indirect effects by
of Earth—as it passes through the atmo- changing how clouds behave. Clouds are a
sphere. The bulk of aerosols, particularly critical component of the climate system;
sulfates, scatter incoming sunlight, some of they cool Earth’s surface by shading about
it back toward space, thus cooling Earth’s 60 percent of the planet at any one time
Photo credit: NASA.
Credit: NASA.
industrial era.
Any process that influ-
ences where and how
clouds develop, how they behave, and how clouds, which increases the globe’s re- Any process that influ-
long they last can impact Earth’s climate. flectivity and slows the cycling of water
ences where and how
And aerosols, it turns out, are masters through the atmosphere—all of which
causes climate to cool rather than warm. clouds develop, how
of meddling with clouds. In fact, certain
aerosols provide tiny “seeds” that allow Another aerosol effect on clouds, called they behave, and how
water vapor in the atmosphere to coalesce the semi-direct effect, occurs when high long they last can im-
much easier than it would otherwise. So, in numbers of light-absorbing aerosols, such
a sense, clouds owe their very existence to as black carbon, warm the surrounding pact Earth’s climate. And
aerosols. atmosphere and cause cloud droplets to aerosols, it turns out,
Other things being equal, clouds that occur evaporate. In contrast to the direct aero-
are masters of meddling
in areas with high numbers of aerosols in the sol effect, this results in net warming by
atmosphere tend to have more numerous— replacing clouds with a smoky haze and with clouds.
but smaller—droplets than those with lower reducing precipitation.
concentrations of the particles. Such droplet- NASA satellites have revealed much about
rich clouds are more apt to scatter incoming aerosols in recent decades, yet many questions
radiation, which causes them to appear remain about aerosols’ competing climate
brighter and more reflective. Ultimately, they impacts. Measuring aerosols within clouds re-
have a stronger cooling influence.
mains challenging. Different types of aerosols
Since smaller-sized droplets are also less can clump together to form hybrid particles
likely to coalesce into raindrops, small that are difficult to study, and changes in
cloud droplets also extend the lifetime of humidity or temperature can cause drastic
changes in how certain aerosols behave and
interact with cloud droplets.
Instruments on previous satellite missions
have made significant strides in under-
standing how aerosols impact climate, yet
a new instrument aboard Glory will pro-
vide unparalleled views into the complex
Credit: NASA.
Every second, 500 million tons of hydrogen as the sun progresses through periods of more
within the sun’s core fuse into helium as part and less intense electromagnetic activity in
of a massive chain of thermonuclear reactions. cycles ranging from a few minutes to decades.
The process yields the energy equivalent to
During periods of high solar activity, in-
billions of exploding hydrogen bombs. This
creases in the number of sunspots (cool dark
Photo credit: NASA.
Credit: NASA.
Credit: NASA.
those seen within one solar cycle, can impact Since 1978, satellite instruments have al- Some research has sug-
Earth’s climate. One theory, for example, is lowed solar scientists to make precise mea-
gested that even subtle
that the amount of ultraviolet radiation the surements of TSI. But on a geological time
sun emits can impact the formation of ozone, scale, these thirty years of solar irradiance shifts in the sun’s irra-
which functions as a greenhouse gas. measurements offer a mere snapshot of the diance, on the scale of
sun. Longer-term, accurate measurements
Scientists who study the links between those seen within one
of the sun’s total solar irradiance are critical
solar activity and climate are confident that
for identifying broader trends that could solar cycle, can impact
the small variations in TSI cannot explain
potentially affect Earth’s climate.
the intensity and speed of warming trends Earth’s climate.
seen on Earth during the last century. The Glory carries an instrument called the Total
0.1 percent shift in solar irradiance simply Irradiance Monitor (TIM) that will help
isn’t enough to have a strong influence, and maintain and extend the long-term TSI
there’s no convincing evidence that suggests record. The instrument will build upon a
TSI has trended upward enough over the last similar TIM instrument launched in 2003
century to affect climate. as part of the Solar Radiation and Climate
Experiment (SORCE) mission.
However, it’s possible—probable, in fact—that
the sun experiences sizable shifts in irradi- A key factor for global climate models would
ance over much longer time scales that could be lacking if missions such as Glory did not
impact climate. For example, a 70-year period, monitor the sun’s irradiance. These models
from 1645 to 1715, called the Maunder Mini- are used to diagnose and predict how climate
mum, which featured exceptionally low num- is changing, and they offer critical informa-
bers of sunspots, is thought to be connected to tion to lawmakers about how societies might
a period of especially low TSI that helped drive react to the changes.
Europe’s “Little Ice Age.”
(TIM)—supply information
about critical components of
Earth’s climate system. The
APS, a polarimeter mounted
Above: Technicians wear on the underside of the
garments—known as bunny Glory spacecraft and facing
suits—to protect instru-
ments from dust and other downward, collects informa-
contaminants. Here, engi-
neers prepare Glory’s APS
tion about aerosol properties.
for environmental testing. The TIM, which is located
on the opposite side of the
spacecraft, facing toward the
sun, measures the intensity of
incoming solar radiation at
the top of the atmosphere. light from Venus. By studying polarization—
a measure of the physical orientation of light
Aerosol Polarimetry Sensor. waves as they move and twist through space—
Hansen managed to deduce the composition
The design of APS stretches back to the
of the clouds in Venus’ atmosphere.
1970s, when James Hansen, now director of
the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Stud- The success of such efforts led engineers to
ies, conducted studies on the polarization of develop similar instruments for use on Earth.
In 1999, NASA developed an aircraft-based
polarimeter, called the Research Scanning
Polarimeter (RSP), for example, that has
demonstrated the power of this technique
to provide detail about Earth’s aerosols. The
Glory APS, which has a nearly identical de-
sign to RSP, will be NASA’s first instrument
capable of applying this method to studying
aerosols globally from space.
Photo credit: NASA.
aerosols from more than 250 angles using nine and calibrations of TSI instruments have
different spectral channels. The 69-kilogram caused noticeable offsets in the data. In
(152 pound) instrument views Earth’s surface most cases, scientists have had to correct
in 5.9-kilometer (3.7 mile) bands along a path for such discrepancies by matching up
that repeats every 16 days. Unpolarized light data between overlapping missions. While
that enters the APS strikes a mirror, passes still important, overlapping missions will
through a series of lenses that collect and focus
become somewhat less crucial than they
the beams, and then gets split by a prism into
previously were because the Glory TIM
An octagonal aluminum
chassis—or bus—serves
as the foundation of the
Glory spacecraft. The
bus is divided into two
Credit: NASA.
sections: a propulsion
deck at the tail end of the
spacecraft and a core deck
Above: Artist’s representa-
tion of Glory atop a Taurus nearer to the front.
XL rocket before launch
from Vandenberg Air Force Attached to the core deck,
Base in California. an irregularly-shaped
instrument assembly board
houses the mission’s two
Right: APS faces down- milk-crate-sized science
ward toward Earth’s sur-
face, whereas TIM looks
instruments, a pair of
upward toward the sun. cloud tracking cameras, a
The red arrow shows the communications antenna,
direction of Glory’s flight,
and the two blue arrows and other supporting com-
point to the two instru- ponents. On the craft’s
ments [BAMS, May 2007, placement of the spacecraft’s battery, in the
© Ameri can Meteoro- exterior, two rotating solar panels (Glory’s
logical Society. Reprinted means of generating electricity) protrude heart of the core deck facing Earth, protects
with permission].
from the bus like wings. it from temperature swings. The attitude
control system contains four geared reaction
Stripping away the panels that make up wheels that keep the APS pointing directly
the bus reveal the guts of the spacecraft. downward—at nadir—even as aspects of the
On the propulsion deck, a large fuel tank orbit change.
is the most prominent feature. The liquid
propellant inside—a clear, pungent sub- In some respects, the Glory spacecraft is
stance called hydrazine—gets piped to four average in comparison to other NASA
adjacent thrusters, which ground-based Earth-observing satellites. It isn’t the larg-
flight operators use to ease the craft into est or the heaviest, nor does it carry the
orbit and make occasional corrections to most scientific instruments. At 1.9 meters
keep it on course. (6.2 feet) by 1.4 meters (4.6 feet)—Glory
isn’t much taller than most people or wider
The core deck is packed with power control than an oil barrel. Glory weighed 525
boxes, regulators, and an attitude control kilograms (1,158 pounds) at launch, about
subsystem that determines the craft’s orien- a tenth the mass of NASA’s flagship Earth-
tation in respect to Earth. The strategic observing satellite, Terra.
offering unprecedented
opportunities to study
multiple aspects of Earth’s
climate system at once.
It might seem like the work should wind similar instrument aboard the SORCE
down once Glory achieves orbit, but for satellite. Likewise, scientists can validate
Photo credit: Earth Science Picture of the Day/Jens Hackman.
some, a successful launch means the work APS data by comparing it to information
is just beginning. collected by NASA’s CALIPSO satellite
and instruments aboard other spacecraft
After launch, a team of flight engineers
called MISR and MODIS, as well as data
eases Glory into position amidst the other
from aircraft campaigns and ground-based
satellites in the A-Train, all of which fly
aerosol sensors.
in a similar orbit and within seconds to
minutes of each other. After that, engi- The TIM instrument takes four measure-
neers confirm that Glory’s orbit is correct ments daily that should be available about
and that all systems are functioning well. a week after acquisition through LASP.
Throughout the mission, flight engineers APS data yields nine different data prod-
make periodic thruster burns to correct ucts—such as aerosol optical thickness,
Above: Aircraft engine ex-
Glory’s orbit when it drifts. a measure of aerosol amount. Data from
haust can produce conden- both are freely available to the public.
sation trails called contrails. With the checkout complete, both the
Glory is designed to fly for three years,
APS and TIM begin to collect data on
at the end of which the mission could be
a near-continuous basis. To ensure the
granted a two-year extension.
accuracy of the TIM data, scientists can
compare it to measurements taken by a
Hal Maring
Jacek Chowdhary John Satrom
Program Scientist Systems Engineer
NASA Headquarters NASA/GISS
STSI
Michael Mishchenko Igor Geogdzhayev
NASA/GISS Rich Hollenhorst
Project Scientist Electrical Systems Engineer
NASA/GISS James Hansen NASA/GSFC
Judd Welton NASA/GISS
Evan Goldstein
Deputy Project Scientist Lorraine Remer APS Instrument Systems Engineer
NASA/GSFC NASA/GSFC STSI
Vickie Moran Li Liu Tamara O’Connell
Observatory Manager NASA/GISS Thermal Systems Engineer
NASA/GSFC TTH Research, Inc.
Vanderlei Martins
Mike Bruckner NASA/UMBC Jeff Hein
Deputy Observatory Manager APS Instrument Manager
Andrzej Wasilewski
Stiner Ghaffarian Technologies NASA/GSFC
SIGMA
Jack Ellis John Bosworth
Larry Travis
Systems Assurance Manager TIM Instrument Systems Engineer
NASA/GISS
NASA/GSFC SIGMA
Joe Bolek John Hughes
Mission Systems Manager TIM Science Team .
HTSI Honeywell Technology Solutions, Inc. NASA/UMBC NASA University of Maryland Baltimore County
LASP Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics NIST National Institute of Standards and Technology
NASA/GISS NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies SIGMA Sigma Space Corporation
NASA/GSFC NASA Goddard Space Flight Center STSI Stellar Solutions, Inc.
www.nasa.gov
NP-2010-7-160-GSFC