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NASA Space

Instrument and Sensing Technology

Space Mission Acronym List and Hyperlink Guide

(Q through R)

NOTICE: Because the original page had grown so large (~168K), I have split it into 14 pages including this page for mission acronyms beginning in Q and R. Some direct, named links will no longer work. If you are looking for information about a particular mission, please select the appropriate file from the following alphabetical listing. If you cannot find information on the mission you are looking for, you may find some information in the General Information page.

SPACE MISSIONS

QuickBird

EarthWatch's initial plans called for a two-satellite series, each having single-band panchromatic and multi-band color sensors. The first satellite was targeted for a first quarter 1996 launch with three-meter panchromatic resolution and 15-meter multicolor sensors. This initial EarlyBird satellite was launched December 24, 1997 from Svobodny, Russia. Communications were lost December 28, 1997 as the result of an anomalous satellite undervoltage condition. The second satellite, originally scheduled for launch in the third quarter 1997 with high resolution one-meter panchromatic and four-meter multicolor sensors. The latest I've been able to find indicate a launch in 2000 for QuickBird.

• QuickBird Specifications from EarthWatch, Inc.
• Press Release: Ball Corporation and WorldView Imaging Corporation Form Remote Sensing Company (1/95) (dated January 25, 1995) from the Ball Corporation.

QUASAT

The QUASAT concept was originated at JPL in the early 1980s, and proposed to ESA as a joint ESA/NASA mission in 1982. The proposal called for 15m class antenna with observing bands at 0.3, 1.6, 5 and 22 GHz. The QUASAT proposal reached Phase-A stage before losing out in 1988 to the ESA Huygens probe for the Cassini mission.

RADARSAT

Launched November 4, 1995, on a Delta II launch vehicle from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

• RADARSAT Program WWW Server
• Radarsat is listed as a current worldwide remote sensing capability in the on-line document Remote Sensing and GIS from Trends in Commercial Space - 1996, from the U.S. Department of Commerce.

RadioAstron

Part of the Spectrum series of spacecraft being built in Russia, scheduled for launch in late 1997.

• NASA Astrophysics Mission Launch Dates and NASA Astrophysics Missions (mostly in Word format) from the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters.
• Schematic of the RadioAstron spacecraft from the NRAO Green Bank home page
• JPL Space Very Long Baseline Interferometry Project. The JPL Space Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) Project, funded by NASA, supports both the VSOP (VLBI Space Observatory Programme) mission under development by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, in Japan, and the RadioAstron mission, being developed by the Astro Space Center of the Lebedev Physical Institute, in Russia. VSOP is scheduled for launch in 1996, and RadioAstron is scheduled for launch in 1997-1998.
• RadioAstron and Space VLBI. DRAO, under contract with the Canadian Space Agency and University of Victoria, is designing and building the correlator for the very long base-line interferometry project RadioAstron. One element of the interferometer is in Earth orbit.
• The Orbiting VLBI tracking station in Green Bank, West Virginia is an NRAO project for NASA. The Green Bank Orbiting VLBI Earth Station is one of several such stations around the world that will provide communiations links to and from two orbiting VLBI satellites now scheduled for launch. These are Radioastron, to be launched by Russia; and VSOP, to be launched by Japan.

Ranger

• Ranger to the Moon.
• Ranger (1964 - 1965) from GSFC. Alternate link?

RapidEye

Constellation of four commercial remote sensing satellites. As of June 2000, the RapidEye web page and press reports both indicate planned launch dates in late 2002 and 2003.

• RapidEye AG

RESURS

• RESURS is listed as a current worldwide remote sensing capability in the on-line document Remote Sensing and GIS from Trends in Commercial Space - 1996, from the U.S. Department of Commerce.

RoLand -- Rosetta Lander

The international comet mission Rosetta will carry two comet landers, Champollion and RoLand. Planned for launch on an Ariane 5 in January 2003.

ROSAT -- ROentgen SATellite X-ray observatory

1990-

• ROSAT, the ROentgen SATellite X-ray observatory
• Artist's redition of the ROSAT Spacecraft (GIF)
• The SAO ROSAT Science Data Center (located at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory)
• NASA Astrophysics Mission Launch Dates and NASA Astrophysics Missions (mostly in Word format) from the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters.

ROSETTA

The international comet mission Rosetta will carry two comet landers, Champollion and RoLand. Planned for launch on an Ariane 5 in January 2003.

• European Space Agency (ESA) Science Missions

RXTE -- Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer

Launched on December 30th, 1995 on a Delta II launch vehicle.

• X-ray Timing Explorer (XTE)
• NASA Astrophysics Mission Launch Dates and NASA Astrophysics Missions (mostly in Word format) from the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters.

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• Space Mission Acronym List and Hyperlink Guide Main Page
• Instrument and Sensing Technology Page
• Spacecraft Systems Division Page
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• Mission to Planet Earth
• Office of Space Science
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Created September 19, 1996. Last update: June 29, 2000. Please see my Disclaimer and Web Policy page. Due to changing job assignments, I am not longer able to or responsible for maintaining these pages, but will try correct major problems when I can. Limited maintenance by Gordon Johnston:

The world wide web uniform resource locator (URL) for this page is:

http://ranier.hq.nasa.gov/Sensors_page/MissionLinks/mlqr.html