Mission

Table 3. ECOSTRESS Mission Characteristics

Parameter Value
Launch Vehicle SpaceX 15
Launch Date June 29, 2018 @ 5:42am, 42sec EDT (9:42:42 UTC)
Mission Extension One year 2019-2020, with proposal to extend mission additional
years pending senior review.
Data coverage CONUS, twelve 1,000 x1,000 km key climate zones and twenty-five 
Fluxnet sites for all opportunities. 
Data collection On average 1 hour of science data per day
Payload mass 490 kg
Payload power 516 W

 

The ECOSTRESS radiometer has been deployed on International Space Station (ISS) on the Japanese Experiment Module - External Facility (JEM-EF) site 10. At this location, the radiometer scan is perpendicular to the ISS velocity

 
Japanese Experiment Module

 

Figure 1. Japanese Experiment Module on International Space Station

The ECOSTRESS radiometer is located in on of the boxes and shown on Figure 2 below:

Radiometer

 

Figure 2. ECOSTRESS radiometer in container

 

ECOSTRESS on ISSFigure 3. ECOSTRESS seen from underneath on ISS
The ISS was photographed by ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet from Crew Dragon Endeavour after undocking. Pesquet, NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, and JAXA astronaut Aki Hoshide executed a fly around maneuver to take pictures of the orbiting laboratory before returning to Earth after 199 days in space as part of Expeditions 65 and 66. Also posted here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasa2explore/sets/72157720187084178/

 

The International Space Station is pictured from the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour during a flyaround of the orbiting lab that took place following its undocking from the Harmony module’s space-facing port on Nov. 8, 2021. ECOSTRESS can be seen in the zoomed in picture-in-picture.