Experience and challenges in implementing Stratospheric Aerosol Gas Experiment on Meteor-3M platform

Implementation of the Stratospheric Aerosol Gas Experiment (SAGE) is a joint science mission between Rosavioskosmos, also called the Russian Aviation and Space Agency (RASA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Under the global collaboration agreement established by Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin in 1995 between the United States and Russia, space was one of the major areas identified for joint scientific collaboration. There were several collaborative projects identified under space, Earth, human exploration of space and aeronautics. SAGE was one of the key Earth Science instruments selected common to both countries interest in ozone research. SAGE has a long space heritage, and four earlier versions of this instrument have flown in space over the last 15-year period. It has provided vital ozone and aerosol data in the mid latitudes and has contributed in the overall ozone depiction research. SAGE II, the fourth instrument is still flying in space on NASA's Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS) for the last 14 years. Ball Aerospace built the Instrument under Langley Research Center's (LaRC) management. SAGE III for the Russian Meteor-3M mission is a third generation design with more spectral bands, elaborate data gathering and storage and intelligent terrestrial software. The Russian collaboration required two complete integrations of SAGE III on the Russian Meteor-3M satellite and a launch an a Zenit-2 launch vehicle manufactured in the Ukraine.