John F. Kennedy Space Center #2616

#2616 John F. Kennedy Space Center by JVPD

The John F. Kennedy Space Center, America's spaceport, is located along Florida's eastern shore on Cape Canaveral. Established as NASA's Launch Operations Center on July 1, 1962, the center has been the site of launching all U.S. human space flight missions, from the early days of Project Mercury to the space shuttle and the next generation of vehicles. In addition, the center is home to NASA's Launch Services Program, which coordinates all expendable vehicle launches carrying a NASA payload. With its 14 spectral bands from the visible to the thermal infrared wavelength region, and its high spatial resolution of 15 to 90 meters (about 50 to 300 feet), ASTER images Earth to map and monitor the changing surface of our planet. ASTER is one of five Earth-observing instruments launched December 18, 1999, on NASA's Terra satellite. The instrument was built by Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. A joint U.S./Japan science team is responsible for validation and calibration of the instrument and the data products. The broad spectral coverage and high spectral resolution of ASTER provides scientists in numerous disciplines with critical information for surface mapping, and monitoring of dynamic conditions and temporal change. Example applications are: monitoring glacial advances and retreats; monitoring potentially active volcanoes; identifying crop stress; determining cloud morphology and physical properties; wetlands evaluation; thermal pollution monitoring; coral reef degradation; surface temperature mapping of soils and geology; and measuring surface heat balance. The U.S. science team is located at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The Terra mission is part of NASA's Science Mission Directorate.

Photo Credit: NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team [0003-0612-3114-3947] by 0003