Historical Photo of the Month - June 2008

Seasat Artwork
Photograph Number P-20157

On June 26, 1978 an experimental satellite called Seasat was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base. Its purpose was to study Earth and its seas from about 500 miles above Earth in a nearly polar orbit, using instruments that were originally created to study other planets. Seasat used synthetic aperture radar, a radar scatterometer, a radar altimeter, and a microwave radiometer to gather data. It returned highly detailed radar images of land surfaces and the instruments measured wind speed and direction, ocean surface and wave heights, surface temperatures, and sea ice cover. Seasat provided valuable information about ocean circulation, the topography of the ocean floor, and links between the oceans and climate. After more than three months of data collection, an electrical short caused its power system to fail. Many instruments and satellites in later decades built upon the technology used in Seasat: Topex/Poseidon, Jason, NASA Scatterometer, Quikscat, SeaWinds, Shuttle Imaging Radar, and radar systems on the Magellan and Cassini spacecraft.

The artwork above is by artist Ken Hodges, who painted many different spacecraft for JPL before computer animation became widely used for publicity and outreach. The 24"x28" painting (gouache on watercolor board) is in the JPL Archives artwork collection.

For more information about Seasat or about the history of JPL, contact the JPL Archives for assistance. [Archival and other sources: Archives art collection, photo index, Seasat web pages, JPL press releases, Robert Chandler (Graphics).]