EO·Atlas
OCO-3 (Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3)
NASA carbon-monitoring instrument deployed on ISS in May 2019; SIF at 757 nm and 740 nm demonstrated; target-mode and snapshot area mode provide hundreds to thousands of SIF retrievals per overpass at biologically diverse sites.
OCO-3 (Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3) is a NASA carbon-monitoring instrument deployed on the International Space Station in May 2019, attached to the Japanese Experiment Module Exposed Facility (JEM-EF).[1][2]
OCO-3 shares the same three-channel grating spectrometer design as OCO-2, covering the oxygen A-band, the weak CO2 band, and the strong CO2 band. The spacecraft carries a Pointing Mirror Assembly (PMA) that enables two observing modes beyond the nadir-only geometry of OCO-2: Target Mode, which tracks a specific surface site across the overpass, and Snapshot Area Map (SAM) mode, which collects hundreds to thousands of SIF retrievals across a 80x80 km area at biologically and ecologically diverse sites in a single pass.[1]
Because OCO-3 orbits on the ISS at 408 km altitude and 51.6-degree inclination, it observes at varying times of day rather than at the fixed sun-synchronous crossing time of OCO-2. This variable local solar time sampling provides a different temporal context for CO2 and SIF measurements compared to sun-synchronous orbits with fixed crossing times. Sun-induced fluorescence retrieval at 757 nm and 740 nm has been demonstrated from OCO-3 data.[2]
Supply chain position
- [1]ISS OCO-3 mission overview, eoPortalagency doc2026-06-11
- [2]OCO-3 mission site, NASA JPLoperator marketing2026-06-11
How to cite this page
Plain text
OCO-3 (Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3). EO-Atlas, SpectraWorks B.V. https://eo-atlas.org/missions/oco-3 (CC BY 4.0)
BibTeX
@misc{eoatlas:missions:oco-3,
title = {OCO-3 (Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3)},
author = {{EO-Atlas}},
publisher = {SpectraWorks B.V.},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
url = {https://eo-atlas.org/missions/oco-3}
}