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Hurricane Felix scratches at Nicaragua's coast in this Sept. 4 image from NASA's QuikScat satellite. The image was acquired just 45 minutes before Felix hissed ashore as a Category 5 storm.
QuikScat, managed by JPL, measures ocean surface wind/stress by sending radar pulses to the surface and measuring the strength of the signals returned.
QuikScat Background
NASA's Quick Scatterometer (QuikScat) spacecraft was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California on June 19, 1999. QuikScat carries the SeaWinds scatterometer, a specialized microwave radar that measures near-surface wind speed and direction under all weather and cloud conditions over the Earth's oceans.
QuikScat is managed for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, DC, by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. JPL also built the SeaWinds radar instrument and is providing ground science processing systems. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, managed development of the satellite, designed and built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, CO. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has contributed support to ground systems processing and related activities.
For more information about QuikScat, visit:
http://winds.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/quikscat/index.cfm
For more information about NASA and agency programs, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/
