[30-Nov-22] NASA's PACE mission, which will provide a major boost to scientists studying Earth's atmosphere and ocean health, completed a milestone test in October at the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
NASA 
[19-Aug-22] From build to testing to launch, one figure is always present in the background capturing the story of each Goddard mission - the documentary photographer. In honor of #WorldPhotoDay, follow along as two NASA documentarians share what it's like to capture the story of Goddard's latest mission build, PACE.
NASA [23-Jun-22] Over the past few weeks, a group of engineers from SRON, Airbus Netherlands and NASA has been working on installing the Dutch aerosol instrument SPEXone on NASA's PACE satellite. PACE will conduct measurements on oceans and aerosols to study for example the influence of particulates on the climate. It is scheduled for launch in 2024. On June 23rd the last screw is tightened, which officially completes the integration.
MORE [08-Jun-22] A PACE scientist and his brother have been developing an online program that merges ocean color data with musical notes. The goal is to give onlookers an immersive experience into the ocean imagery Goddard scientists study everyday in an effort to understand the complexities of a large, changing ecosystem.
NASA [07-Jun-22] The Gulf of Maine is growing increasingly warm and salty, due to ocean currents pushing warm water into the gulf from the Northwest Atlantic, according to a new NASA-funded study. These temperature and salinity changes have led to a substantial decrease in the productivity of phytoplankton that serve as the basis of the marine food web.
NASA [05-Nov-21] The urgency of Earth science and climate studies took the spotlight Friday as Vice President Kamala Harris visited NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The vice president received a firsthand look at how the nation's space program studies climate change and provides crucial information to understand our planet's changes and their impacts on our lives.
NASA [14-Jul-21] NASA's Earth-observing satellites collect key information about sharks' habitat - the ocean. NASA's satellites measure the height of the ocean, track currents, monitor marine habitats, and oversee water quality events like harmful algal blooms. Our long-term data sets also help us understand how climate change is affecting the ocean and marine life.
MORE [08-Jun-21] For World Oceans Day, we invite you to learn more about how NASA studies the ocean with a series of online coloring interactives and downloadable coloring pages.
MORE [08-Jun-21] UNESCO's Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission announced the first Actions officially endorsed as part of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, 2021-2030 (the 'Ocean Decade').
MORE [10-May-21] A seaward journey, supported by both NASA and the National Science Foundation, set sail in the northern Atlantic in early May - the sequel to a complementary expedition, co-funded by NSF, that took place in the northern Pacific in 2018.
MORE [23-Feb-21] Yesterday, space research institute SRON briefly opened its digital doors for the media and the parties that have been collaborating over the past years on the new Dutch satellite instrument SPEXone. On behalf of the Dutch government, outgoing minister Ingrid van Engelshoven of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science was there to conduct a final inspection of the instrument before it is shipped off to NASA in the United States.
MORE [29-Oct-20] A single drop of seawater holds millions of phytoplankton, a mix of algae, bacteria, and protocellular creatures. These photosynthesizing microbes pump out more than half of the planet's oxygen, while slowing climate change by capturing an estimated 25% of the carbon dioxide released from burning fossil fuels. But the scale of this vital chemistry is mostly a guess. Today the National Science Foundation announced it will spend $53 million to fund 500 new drifting floats in the first major expansion of the Argo array, a set of 4000 floats that tracks rising ocean temperatures.
MORE [07-Aug-20] On August 6, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) named HARP the Small Satellite Mission of the Year.
MORE [17-Jul-20] Why are there so many songs about rainbows? For NASA's upcoming Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem mission, or PACE, the colors of the rainbow - or, if you prefer, the visible wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum - are the key to unlocking a wealth of new data on skies and seas around the world.
MORE [04-Jun-20] NASA's Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem mission, or PACE, has successfully passed its design reviews and moved into its construction and testing phase, preparing to advance the fields of global ocean and atmospheric science when it launches in 2023.
MORE [06-Feb-20] NASA has selected SpaceX of Hawthorne, California, to provide launch services for the agency's Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission.
MORE [28-Oct-19] NASA's next attempt to map invisible specks in the atmosphere that impact climate change and air quality started from a window seat over the Pacific.
MORE [05-Oct-19] A survey has been designed to discover how you plan to use PACE data in your work. Your answers will help NASA anticipate the scope of PACE science and applications as well as the socioeconomic impact of future PACE products.
MORE [04-Oct-19] For the past three years, Dr. Collin Roesler, Professor of Earth and Oceanographic Science at Bowdoin College, has been studying how phytoplankton in the ocean capture and export carbon dioxide into deeper areas and remove the gas from the atmosphere as part of NASA's Export Processes in the Ocean from Remote Sensing (EXPORTS) mission. Now the project is going airborne.
MORE [28-Aug-19] After passing a key review hurdle, NASA's newest mission to study the health of Earth's ocean ecosystems and atmosphere is ready to move from design to reality.
MORE [14-Aug-19] The PACE mission represents a leap forward in observing ocean color and will provide an unprecedented view of the ocean. Scheduled to launch in 2022, PACE will extend NASA's 20-plus year record of satellite observations of global ocean biology, aerosols and clouds. In this podcast, Kathleen McIntyre discusses the mission and her perspective as PACE Deputy Project Manager.
MORE [07-May-19] The newly developed Dutch space instrument for aerosol measurement SPEXone is awarded 7 million Euros from the Netherlands Space Office. This completes the funding that is needed for the production of the instrument. Onboard NASA satellite PACE (launch 2022), SPEXone will map the amount and properties of aerosols with unprecedented accuracy, providing new valuable data to climate scientists.
MORE [15-Mar-19] The purpose of the
NASA NSPIRES solicitation (NNH19ZDA001N-PACESAT) is to formulate a Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, Ocean Ecosystem (PACE) Science and Applications Team (SAT) for a three-year period (FY20-22). The team will encompass basic and applied research and applications, using data from precursors to OCI, HARP-2, and SPEXone. The PACE mission is to include an ocean color sensor and one or more aerosol/cloud polarimeters, in order to produce data to maintain a time series of critical climate and Earth system variables.
MORE [25-Feb-19] ROSES-18 Amendment 67 presents a new opportunity in program element
A.48, Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, Ocean Ecosystem (PACE) Mission System Vicarious Calibration.
MORE [03-Dec-18] On Monday, December 3rd at 10:34 a.m. EST,
SpaceX successfully launched Spaceflight SSO-A: SmallSat Express to a low Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 4E (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. A series of six deployments occurred approximately 13 to 43 minutes after liftoff, after which Spaceflight began to command its own deployment sequences.
MORE [24-Sep-18] Arabian Sea algal blooms are taking over the base of the food chain which could prove catastrophic for 120 million people living on the sea’s edge. Joaquim Goes, Research Professor at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in New York City joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss this growing problem on Public Broadcasting Systems' "SciTech Now."
MORE [08-Aug-18] Satellite images of phytoplankton blooms on the surface of the ocean often dazzle with their diverse colors, shades and shapes. But phytoplankton are more than just nature's watercolors: They play a key role in Earth's climate by removing heat-trapping carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis.
MORE [26-Jul-18] Four new videos showcase NASA's ocean-watching PACE mission with moving mosaics, stop-motion animation and jazz. The animations (which can also be viewed in the PACE
video gallery) take on topics of biodiversity, harmful algal blooms, aerosols, and fisheries.
MORE [18-Jun-18] A large multidisciplinary team of scientists, equipped with advanced underwater robotics and an array of analytical instrumentation, will set sail for the northeastern Pacific Ocean this August. The team's mission for NASA and the National Science Foundation (NSF) is to study the life and death of the small organisms that play a critical role in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and in the ocean's carbon cycle.
MORE [09-May-18]
SeaDAS is a comprehensive software package for the processing, display, analysis, and quality control of ocean color data. Originally developed to support the SeaWiFS mission, it now supports most U.S. and international ocean color missions. A new release, Version 7.5, includes over 1700 code updates that have resulted in enhanced statistical tools, help features, and other improvements. SeaDAS is
available from the Ocean Biology Distributed Active Archive Center (OB.DAAC) at Goddard Space Flight Center.
MORE [12-Feb-18] The NASA Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, Ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission, with a target launch within the next 5 years, aims to make measurements that will advance ocean and atmospheric science and facilitate interdisciplinary studies involving the interaction of the atmosphere with ocean biological systems. Unique to this Earth science satellite project was the formation of a science team charged with a dual role: performing principal investigator (PI)-led peer-reviewed science relevant to specific aspects of PACE, as well as supporting the mission's overall formulation as a unified team.
MORE [04-Aug-17] Following a key program review, the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem, or PACE, mission is now entering its design phase.
MORE [03-Feb-17] The microscopic size of phytoplankton, the plant-like organisms that live in the sunlit upper ocean, belies their importance in the global environment. They provide the food source for the zooplankton that ultimately feed larger animals ranging from small fish to whales. And like plants on land, phytoplankton use carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to grow and thrive through photosynthesis, which ultimately releases oxygen into the ocean and atmosphere.
MORE [29-Sep-16] The spacecraft for a new NASA satellite mission designed to monitor microscopic ocean life and its outsized impact on Earth's climate will be built at the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
MORE [19-Jul-16] NASA's Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission is a first-of-its-kind project that aims to answer key questions about the consequences of climate change on the health of our oceans and their relationship with airborne particles and clouds. PACE will use a wide spectrum of wavelengths from an "ocean color" instrument to provide scientists with this information.
MORE [13-Mar-15] NASA is beginning work on a new satellite mission that will extend critical climate measurements of Earth's oceans and atmosphere and advance studies of the impact of environmental changes on ocean health, fisheries and the carbon cycle.
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