Coriolis (satellite)

Coriolis

Image of the Windsat component undergoing testing
Operator	NRL, AFRL
Mission type	Earth and Solar observation
Satellite of	Earth
Launch date	January 6, 2003
Launch vehicle	Titan II
Launch site	Vandenberg AFB
COSPAR ID	2003-001A
Mass	395 kg
Power	1174 W
Orbital elements
Regime	Low Earth orbit
Eccentricity	0.0013869626
Inclination	98.7°
Apoapsis	842 km
Periapsis	822 km
Orbital period	101.6 min
Instruments
Main instruments	WindSat, SMEI

The Coriolis satellite is a Naval Research Laboratory and Air Force Research Laboratory earth and space observation satellite launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, on 2003-01-06 at 14:19 GMT.

Instruments

Windsat

Main article: WINDSAT

WINDSAT is a joint Integrated Program Office/Department of Defense demonstration project, intended to measure ocean surface wind speed and wind direction from space using a polarimetric radiometer.

Solar Mass Ejection Imager (SMEI)

The Solar Mass Ejection Imager (SMEI) is an instrument intended to detect disturbances in the solar wind by means of imaging scattered light from the free electrons in the plasma of the solar wind. To do this three CCD cameras observe sections of the sky of size 60 by 3 degree.

As the SMEI instrument observers the whole sky, data generated has been used to observe periodic changes in the brightness of stars. This data be used to detect asteroseismological oscillation in giant stars, and for the detection of large eclipsing extra-solar planets.

References

• WINDSAT site at NOAA

Ray, Justin. "Coriolis launched to track ocean winds, solar storms". Spaceflight Now. http://spaceflightnow.com/titan/g4/index.html.