missions

PACE

PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) is a NASA Earth science satellite launched on 8 February 2024 into a sun-synchronous polar orbit at 676.5 km altitude, 98-degree inclination, with a 13:00 local equatorial crossing time and approximately 2-day global revisit.^[1] The mission carries three instruments: the Ocean Color Instrument (OCI), a hyperspectral push-broom radiometer covering ultraviolet through shortwave infrared (340-2260 nm) for ocean colour and atmospheric characterisation; SPEXone, a Dutch multi-angle spectropolarimeter developed by SRON for aerosol microphysical property retrieval; and HARP2, a hyper-angular wide-coverage polarimeter developed by UMBC for cloud and aerosol characterisation.^[2]^[3]^[4] PACE is designed to advance understanding of phytoplankton community composition, marine primary productivity, harmful algal bloom dynamics, and fine-mode and coarse-mode aerosol properties including their interaction with clouds.^[1] Initial science data were publicly released following commissioning completion in April 2024.^[5]

Named with

In the same stories

MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) Instrument · named together · 1 story
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Operator · named together · 1 story
Ocean and Land Colour Instrument (OLCI) Instrument · named together · 1 story

Supply chain position

carries instrument Ocean Color Instrument

carries instrument SPEXone Polarimeter

carries instrument Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter 2

operated by National Aeronautics and Space Administration

launched on Spacex Falcon 9

related to Marine primary production

related to Harmful algal blooms

related to Air quality

Ocean colour / water-leaving radiance → demonstrated Ocean Color Instrument

Multi-angle polarimetry → demonstrated SPEXone Polarimeter

Multi-angle polarimetry → demonstrated Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter 2

Sources

[1]PACE Mission, NASAagency doc2026-06-14
[2]Ocean Color Instrument, NASA PACEagency doc2026-06-14
[3]SPEXone Monitoring, SRONagency doc2026-06-14
[4]HARP2, NASA Earthdataagency doc2026-06-14
[5]PACE initial science data release notes, NASA Ocean Coloragency doc2026-06-14
[6]WMO OSCAR PACE satellite recordagency doc2026-06-14

Cite https://eo-atlas.org/missions/pace Markdown twin → Field definitions → Suggest a correction →

How to cite this page

Plain text

PACE. EO-Atlas, SpectraWorks B.V. https://eo-atlas.org/missions/pace (CC BY 4.0)

BibTeX

@misc{eoatlas:missions:pace,
  title = {PACE},
  author = {{EO-Atlas}},
  publisher = {SpectraWorks B.V.},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
  url = {https://eo-atlas.org/missions/pace}
}