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R.I.P.
TOMS: NASA Ozone Instrument Laid to Rest After Three Decades
During its almost 30-year
lifespan, the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) program provided unique
and valuable information that shaped public policy and international
perspectives on the environment. The instrument was important because its data
established the geographical extent of the "ozone hole" over the
Antarctic, and monitored its year-to-year evolution.
With the recent decommissioning
of the last of the three TOMS instruments, Earth Probe TOMS, the TOMS program
closed on May 30, 2007. The legacy TOMS leaves behind will not be forgotten.
The
Nimbus-7 spacecraft, which carried the first TOMS instrument, before its launch
in 1978
The TOMS program began with the
launch of TOMS Flight Model No. 1 on the Nimbus-7 spacecraft on October 24,
1978. NASA scientists originally designed the instrument to study weather
patterns by mapping global ozone. They quickly realized that some of the data
collected by TOMS was much more significant than they initially had imagined.
The instrument gave scientists a
tool for studying ozone in the upper and lower atmosphere in a way that had
never been done before, more frequently and with far greater detail. The TOMS
instrument captured a vast number of images of the ozone daily, which allowed
scientists to constantly monitor changes in the ozone. The capability to measure
long-term trends with the TOMS instrument series has been critical to
international ozone assessment activities.
Ozone that surrounds the Earth in
the upper atmosphere acts as protection from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet
rays. A thinning of the upper ozone layer would put people at greater risk for
skin cancer, cataracts and impaired immune systems. Ozone in the lower
atmosphere, close to Earth’s surface, is a pollutant that causes damage to
lung tissue and plants.
The
Earth Probe TOMS instrument before its launch in 1996. Credit: NASA
TOMS measured the Earth’s ozone
levels by calculating the amount of ultraviolet light scattered from the Earth’s
surface and atmosphere back into space. Since the ozone layer absorbs
ultraviolet light, areas in which less ultraviolet light was recorded indicated
the presence of more ozone.
"TOMS was unique because it
was a total ozone mapper. It measured ozone on every spot on the Earth every
day. That is why it was so valuable, it saw everything," said Richard
McPeters, the principal investigator for Earth Probe TOMS, at NASA’s Goddard
Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. McPeters worked on TOMS from the earliest
days of the program.
The data from the TOMS instrument
were critical to the detection of long-term damage to the ozone layer over long
periods of time, including above heavily populated areas. These discoveries led
to the passage of the Montreal Protocol in 1987, an international agreement
restricting the production of ozone-depleting chemicals.
TOMS data were also key in
confirming the destruction of the ozone at the South Pole each year, the
"ozone hole," which is now an annual occurrence.
A new TOMS instrument on the
Russian spacecraft Meteor-3 replaced TOMS/Nimbus-7 after 14 years of service.
TOMS/Meteor-3 was the first significant U.S. instrument to fly aboard a Russian
spacecraft and provided a main source of ozone data until it stopped working in
1994.
The final leg of the TOMS program
was launched in July of 1996. This TOMS instrument, aboard the Earth Probe
spacecraft, was placed at a lower altitude than its predecessors. The lower
orbit allowed Earth Probe TOMS to provide better resolution for viewing smaller
phenomena, like volcanoes, forest fires and sources of pollution. This
instrument took almost 200,000 measurements daily, covering nearly the entire
planet.
Earth Probe TOMS
also kicked off collaboration between Goddard and Capitol College of Laurel, Md.
Students from Capitol College’s Space Operations Institute worked with the
TOMS Flight Operations Team at Goddard to redesign the Earth Probe TOMS ground
control system. A few years later, the TOMS control center was moved to the
Capitol College campus and the students took over the full operation of the
instrument with periodic supervision by the team at Goddard. Edward Chang, the
contracting officer’s technical representative from Goddard, says that even
though the TOMS mission has ended, the collaboration between NASA and Capitol
College continues. The college took the lead in decommissioning Earth Probe TOMS
on May 30, 2007.
Following failure of the
transmitter in late 2006, TOMS was no longer able to send its data back to the
scientists on the ground, so continuing to operate the instrument was useless.
The spacecraft will remain in its current orbit, but with all fuel and other
energy sources cut off. It will take 37 years for the spacecraft to re-enter the
atmosphere.
The Ozone Monitoring Instrument,
a more advanced spectrometer that flies on the Aura satellite, has taken over
the work done by the TOMS program. Launched in 2004, this instrument was created
through collaboration between Goddard and the Netherlands Agency for Aerospace
Programs working with the Finnish Meteorological Institute. Like TOMS, the Ozone
Monitoring Instrument records total ozone and other atmospheric data related to
ozone chemistry and climate.
TOMS delivered some of the most
critical and influential environmental data ever recorded, documenting the
long-term decline of global ozone levels and the emergence and development of
the Antarctic ozone hole. It allowed the world to view and understand ozone in a
new way, helping to shape international environmental perspectives and policy.
The program’s legacy, according
to McPeters, lies in the incredibly detailed information TOMS provided for
examining changes in the ozone layer. "People got used to being able to
view the Earth the way TOMS viewed it, seeing a global image of the ozone in
high resolution every day. At this point, as a result of TOMS, that view is now
considered a necessity."
Credit: NASA
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