SAC-C (Satellite de Aplicaciones Cientifico-B) is an International (Argentina plus USA, France, Italy, Denmark, and Brazil)
satellite that was launched by a Delta-7320-10C
rocket at 13:24 UT from Vandenberg AFB.
Its mission is to remotely-sense vegetation, wetlands, and ecosystem in four wavelength
bands covering 0.4-1.75 microns, with a spatial resolution of 1 km. The orbital planes of
SAC-C, EO 1, Landsat 7, and Terra are closely coplanar, with a given site being successively
visited by each spacecraft within an hour of each other.
Also on-board is the GOLPE (GPS OccuLtation and
Passive reflection Experiment) with a GPS receiver
receiving signals from the GPS fleet (a) directly, (b)
after reflection from Earth's surface, and (c) after the signals traversed the dense
atmosphere and ionosphere tangentially. These tangentially penetrating signals carry phase
change information which may be utilized in deriving the atmospheric density/temperature
structures, and the ionospheric electron density profiles. It carries a Helium
Magnetometer also.
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