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Q&AZ: After orbiting Earth for 17 years, what will happen to the CALIPSO satellite?

KJZZ | By Kirsten Dorman

Published October 23, 2023 at 2:25 PM MST

A computer graphic image shows the CALIPSO satellite above the Earth. It is shining a green laser down on the ocean, leaving behind a streak of colors that indicate different heat map-like measurements to demonstrate how the satellite collected data. — In 2006, NASA and France’s National Centre for Space Studies launched a satellite named CALIPSO. Over its 17-year mission, CALIPSO informed thousands of scientific reports.

In 2006, NASA and France’s National Centre for Space Studies launched a satellite named CALIPSO.

Through KJZZ's Q&AZ reporting project, a listener asked: Now that the satellite’s mission is over after 17 years orbiting Earth, what will happen to it?

Dave Winker was the principal investigator for the CALIPSO mission, where he met professor John Reagan.

They were both working with LiDAR technology, which is similar to radar.

“We’re doing the same thing, but using light,” Winker explained.

Dave Winker is seen standing outside at a weather station in Hong Kong. He is surrounded by equipment and there is a body of water visible behind him. He is looking at the camera with one hand in his pants pocket, wearing glasses. It is foggy. — Dave Winker was the principal investigator for the CALIPSO mission and earned his Ph.D. at the University of Arizona. He's seen here at a weather station in Hong Kong.

CALIPSO used lasers to study climate, weather and air quality.

Eventually Winker said he found himself at NASA, working with Reagan again.

“When we put the CALIPSO proposal together, he was on the science team for CALIPSO also,” he recalled. “He came up with some good ideas on how to do instrument calibrations and other things.”

A 1998 proposal for CALIPSO was accepted. Almost a decade later, it was ‘go time.’

“At launch I was thinking I would be really happy if we got one year of observations,” said Winder.

According to Winker, that’s normal for missions like this. But CALIPSO exceeded expectations by operating for more than a decade. The lengthy timeline of those observations made the collected data especially interesting to climate scientists.

“One of the really interesting things about CALIPSO is that it measures a huge variety of different things,” said Winker.

In different layers of the atmosphere, CALIPSO measured volcanic eruptions and dust blowing from the Sahara. It even tracked the movements of phytoplankton below the ocean’s surface and nutrients flowing to Amazon rainforests.