Terra was launched on December 18, 1999.
Upcoming Terra constellation exit. Terra has completed all mission maneuvers related to maintaining a 10:30 mean local time (MLT) equator crossing and 705 km orbit altitude. Terra will begin drifting to an earlier MLT around March 2021. In September 2022, Terra will have a 10:15 AM MLT crossing corresponding to a constellation exit with lower orbit altitude (694 km). MLT will continue to drift after this, reaching 9:00 AM in February 2026. After constellation exit, MOPITT science observations will continue in concert with the changing MLT. The major effect will be that the MOPITT surface sampling pattern will no longer be repeating every 16 days. However, sample locations will be reported with the data in the same format as current data. The MOPITT single pixel footprint size will increase slightly with lower orbit altitude. We do not expect these orbit changes to have significant impacts to MOPITT retrieval quality.
The MOPITT Search and Subset Web Application URL: https://subset.larc.nasa.gov/mopitt/login.php
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