The Aquarius/SAC-D mission and status of the Aquarius instrument

The Aquarius/SAC-D mission is a partnership between the USA (NASA) and Argentina (CONAE). The observatory consists of Aquarius, an L-band radiometer/radar combination being developed under NASA’s Earth System Science Pathfinder (ESSP) program to map the surface salinity field of the oceans from space, together with the SAC-D bus and several instruments provided by CONAE and its partners. The Aquarius instrument is currently in I&T at NASA/JPL. The mission is scheduled for launch in May, 2010.