NASA's Quick Scatterometer. or QuikSCAT. satellite was lofted into space
at 7:15 p.m. Pacific Time on June 6. 1999 atop a U.S. Air Force Titan II rocket
from Space Launch Complex 4 West at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base.
The SeaWinds on the QuikSCAT mission was a "quick recovery" mission to fill
the gap created by the loss of data from the NASA Scatterometer. or NSCAT.
when the satellite it was flying on lost power in June 1997.
The SeaWinds instrument on the QuikSCAT satellite measured near-surface wind
speed and direction under all weather and cloud conditions over Earth's oceans.
The goal: Improve storm warning and monitoring. as well as improve weather
forecasts near coastlines by using wind data.
The satellite also studied rain forest vegetation changes. and Arctic/Antarctic ice
pack changes.
QuikSCAT remained fully operational until November 2009 when the SeaWinds
instrument suffered a mechanical failure.