This animation shows the orbits of NASA's fleet of Earth observing spacecraft that are considered operational as of December 2019. The clouds used in this version are from a high resolution GEOS model run at 10 minute time steps interpolated down to the per-frame level.
Changes to this version include: removal of Jason-2 and Jason-3 and the camera does not show DSCOVR within its view.
Spacecraft included:
Aqua
Aura
CALIPSO: Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation
CYGNSS-1: Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System 1
CYGNSS-2: Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System 2
CYGNSS-3: Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System 3
CYGNSS-4: Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System 4
CYNGSS-5: Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System 5
CYGNSS-6: Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System 6
CYGNSS-7: Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System 7
CYGNSS-8: Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System 8
Cloudsat
GPM: Global Precipitation Measurement
GRACE-FO-1: Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow On-1
GRACE-FO-2: Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow On-2
ICESat-2
ISS: International Space Station
Landsat 7
Landsat 8
OCO-2: Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2
SMAP: Soil Moisture Passive Active
SORCE: Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment
Suomi NPP: Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership
Terra
Credits: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio
The Blue Marble data is courtesy of Reto Stockli (NASA/GSFC).
Greg Shirah (NASA/GSFC): Lead Visualizer
Ernie Wright (USRA): Visualizer