The Ten-thousandth Orbit

28 January 2004 was a special day for the Envisat mission as the satellite completed its 10,000th orbit. This means that Envisat has travelled 450 million kilometers since its launch, i.e. as much as Mars Express.

During its 10,000th orbit, as for any of its fourteen daily orbits, Envisat was using all its ten instruments to gather information about the earth and the ground segment was generating about 10,000 MBytes of data products.

Below are examples of data acquired during orbit 10,000.

SCIAMACHY total ozone column:
The image shows the global total ozone column on 28 January 2004, based on SCIAMACHY data. The total ozone column is operationally derived by the TEMIS project team from Level 1 spectra product with a DOAS-algorithm, in the framework of the ESA Data User Programme (see http://www.temis.nl).

• Instrument: Scanning Imaging Absorption Spectrometer for Atmospheric Chartography (SCIAMACHY)
• Date of Acquisition: 28 January 2004
• Orbit number: 10000
• Orbit direction: Descending
• SCIAMACHY product used: Level 1 spectra

ASAR Global Monitoring Mode over Arctic Sea, north of Greenland:
The image shows part of northern Greenland and the Arctic Sea. The data was acquired using an innovative ASAR low bit rate mode, called the Global Monitoring Mode, particularly suited to gathering low-resolution data over wide areas like the Artic Ocean.

• Instrument: Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR)
• Date of Acquisition: 28 January 2004
• Orbit number: 10000
• Orbit direction: Descending
• ASAR features: Global Monitoring Mode image (1000 metre resolution)
• ASAR mode: Global Monitoring Mode (400 km wide)
• ASAR polarisation: HH

ASAR wide Swath Mode over Antarctica, the Ross Sea and giant iceberg B15-A:
The image shows part of the Ross Sea and the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica. The world's largest iceberg, B-15A, in the middle of the image, is currently breaking up and is constantly observed by Envisat. For more information on B-15A, see the ESA web portal story Iceberg's end caught by Envisat.

• Instrument: Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR)
• Date of Acquisition: 28 January 2004
• Orbit number: 10000
• Orbit direction: Descending
• ASAR features: Wide Swath Mode image (150 metre resolution)
• ASAR mode: Wide Swath Mode (400 km wide)
• ASAR polarisation: HH

MERIS Reduced Resolution over Texas and Mexico:
Central Mexico and part of Texas, the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico are displayed in this Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) reduced resolution image.
The town of Corpus Christi can be perceived on the coast of the Gulf, just under the heavy cloud cover which masks the land from the Gulf to the western Sierra Madre. Farther to the north, the urban area of Houston and the port town of Galveston can be seen.

• Instrument: MEdium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS)
• Date of Acquisition: 28 January 2004
• Orbit number: 10000
• Orbit direction: Descending
• Instrument features: Reduced Resolution image (1200-metre resolution)

AATSR Thermal Image over Baffin Island:
This image covers the Foxe Basin and the southern portion of Baffin Island (Canada) from northeast to southwest, and was processed from data acquired by the AATSR onboard Envisat on January 28th, 2004 during orbit 10,000.

This is a nighttime thermal image of the Arctic. The ice is whitish blue in colour and shows the Foxe Basin (in the centre-right of the image); the land (covered by snow) appears to be deep blue or black in colour.
Processed by Rutherford-Appleton Laboratories.

• Instrument: Advanced Along Track Scanning Radiometer (AATSR)
• Date of Acquisition: 28 January 2004
• Orbit number: 10000
• Orbit direction: Descending
• Instrument features: Level1b (TOA) image (1 kilometre-scale resolution)

Keywords: ESA European Space Agency - Agence spatiale europeenne, observation de la terre, earth observation, satellite remote sensing, teledetection, geophysique, altimetrie, radar, chimique atmospherique, geophysics, altimetry, radar, atmospheric chemistry