Orbit Type: LEO > Low Earth Orbit > Polar Sun-Synchronous

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The Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) is a
Department of Defense (DoD) program run by the Air Force Space
and Missle Systems Center (SMC). The DMSP designs, builds,
launches, and ... maintains satellites monitoring the
meteorological, oceanographic, and solar-terrestrial physics
environments.

Each DMSP satellite has a 101 minute, sun-synchronous near-polar
orbit at an altitude of 830km above the surface of the
earth. The visible and infrared sensors (OLS) collect images
across a 3000km swath, providing global coverage twice per
day. The combination of day/night and dawn/dusk satellites
allows monitoring of global information such as clouds every 6
hours. The microwave imager (MI) and sounders (T1, T2) cover one
half the width of the visible and infrared swath. These
instruments cover polar regions at least twice and the
equatorial region once per day. The space environment sensors
(J4, M, IES) record along-track plasma densities, velocities,
composition and drifts.

The data from the DMSP satellites are received and used at
operational centers continuously. The data are sent to the
National Geophysical Data Center's Solar Terrestrial Physics
Division (NGDC/STP) by the Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA) for
creation of an archive.

Additional information available at
http://dmsp.ngdc.noaa.gov/dmsp.html

[Summary provided by NOAA]

http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/dmsp/index.html