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MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov 

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

Patricia Viets  (301) 457-5005
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Suitland, Md.

Public Relations Office 81-3-3438-6107, 6108 or 6109
National Space Development Agency of Japan, Tokyo, Japan
   
News Release: 2003-024                                               
February 24, 2003 

NASA's Newest Seawinds Instrument Breezes into Operation
========================================================

One of NASA's newest Earth-observing instruments, the SeaWinds
scatterometer aboard Japan's Advanced Earth Observing Satellite 2
(Adeos 2)  -- now renamed Midori 2 -- has successfully transmitted its
first radar data to our home planet, generating its first high-quality
images.

One of the first images may be found at

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA03896 .

From its orbiting perch high above Earth, SeaWinds on Midori 2
("midori" is Japanese for the color green, symbolizing the
environment) will provide the world's most accurate, highest
resolution and broadest geographic coverage of ocean wind speed and
direction, sea ice extent and properties of Earth's land surfaces.  It
will complement and eventually replace an identical instrument
orbiting since June 1999 on NASA's Quick Scatterometer (QuikScat)
satellite.  Its three- to five-year mission will augment a long-term
ocean surface wind data series that began in 1996 with launch of the
NASA Scatterometer on Japan's first Adeos spacecraft.

Climatologists, meteorologists and oceanographers will soon routinely
use data from  SeaWinds on Midori 2 to understand and predict severe
weather patterns, climate change and global weather abnormalities like
El Ni=F1o.  The data are expected to improve global and regional 
weather forecasts, ship routing and marine hazard avoidance, 
measurements of sea ice extent and the tracking of icebergs, among 
other uses.   

"Midori 2, its SeaWinds instrument and associated ground processing
systems are functioning very smoothly," said Moshe Pniel,
scatterometer projects manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, Calif.  "Following initial checkout and calibration, we look
forward to continuous operations, providing vital data to scientists
and weather forecasters around the world."

 "These first images show remarkable detail over land, ice and
oceans," said Dr. Michael Freilich, Ocean Vector Winds Science Team
Leader, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Ore.  "The combination of
SeaWinds data and measurements from other instruments on Midori 2 with
data from other international satellites will enable detailed studies
of ocean circulation, air-sea interaction and climate variation simply
not possible until now."

The released image, obtained from data collected on January 28 and 29,
depicts Earth's continents in green, polar glacial ice-covered regions
in blue-red and sea ice in gray.  Color and intensity changes over ice
and land are related to ice melting, variations in land surface
roughness and vegetation cover.  Ocean surface wind speeds, measured
during a 12-hour period on January 28, are shown by colors.  Blues
correspond to low wind speeds and reds to wind speeds up to 15 meters
per second (30 knots).  Black arrows denote wind direction.  White
gaps over the oceans represent unmeasured areas between SeaWinds
swaths (the instrument measures winds over about 90 percent of the
oceans each day).

SeaWinds transmits high-frequency microwave pulses to Earth's land
masses, ice cover and ocean surface and measures the strength of the
radar pulses that bounce back to the instrument.  It takes millions of
radar measurements covering about 93 percent of Earth's surface every
day, operating under all weather conditions, day and night.  Over the
oceans, SeaWinds senses ripples caused by the winds, from which
scientists can compute wind speed and direction.  These ocean surface
winds drive Earth's oceans and control the exchange of heat, moisture
and gases between the atmosphere and the sea.

Launched December 14, 2002, from Japan, the instrument was first
activated on January 10 and transitioned to its normal science mode on
January 28.  A four-day dedicated checkout period was completed on
January 31.  A six-month calibration/validation phase will begin in
April, with regular science operations scheduled to begin this
October.

SeaWinds on Midori 2 is managed for NASA's Office of Earth Science,
Washington, D.C., by JPL, which developed the instrument and performs
instrument operations and science data processing, archiving and
distribution.  NASA also provides U.S. ground system support.  The
National Space Development Agency of Japan provided the Midori 2
spacecraft, H-IIA launch vehicle, mission operations and the Japanese
ground network.  The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
provides near-real-time data processing and distribution for SeaWinds
operational data users.  The California Institute of Technology in
Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.

Additional information about SeaWinds is available at:

http://winds.jpl.nasa.gov http://winds.jpl.nasa.gov/ .

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