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High Resolution Dynamics Limb Sounder

AURA SPACECRAFT

The Aura spacecraft is designed for a six-year lifetime. The spacecraft orbits at 705 km in a sun-synchronous orbit with a 1:45 PM ±15 minute equator crossing time. Aura limb instruments are all designed to observe roughly along the orbit plane. MLS is on the front of the spacecraft (the forward velocity direction) while HIRDLS, TES and OMI are mounted on the nadir side.

The Aura spacecraft was launched on July 15, 2004, into a near polar, sun-synchronous orbit with a period of approximately 100 minutes. The spacecraft repeats its ground track every 16 days to provide atmospheric measurements over virtually every point on the Earth in a repeatable pattern, permitting assessment of atmospheric phenomena changes in the same geographic locations throughout the life of the mission.