NASA Aquarius: SAC-D Artist's Concept

Artist's concept of the Aquarius/SAC-D spacecraft, a collaboration between NASA and Argentina's space agency, with participation from Brazil, Canada, France and Italy.

Aquarius, the NASA-built primary instrument on the spacecraft, will take NASA's first space-based measurements of ocean surface salinity, a key missing variable in satellite observations of Earth that links ocean circulation, the global balance of freshwater and climate.

The mission is scheduled to launch in June.

Technicians lower the cover over the shipping container holding the international Aquarius/SAC-D spacecraft at Brazil's National Institute for Space Research in Sáo José dos Campos, in preparation for its transport to California's Vandenberg Air Force Base for launch this June.

Images credit: NASA

Further information on the NASA Aquarius program