PACE

Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem

Mission Profile

PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) is a NASA Earth science satellite launched on 8 February 2024 aboard a Falcon 9 Block 5, designed to study the global ocean, atmosphere, and their interactions with unprecedented spectral detail using hyperspectral imaging across the ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared. Its OCI (Ocean Color Instrument) measures ocean color across 200 wavelength channels at 1 km resolution, enabling identification of specific phytoplankton species and tracking of carbon cycling between ocean and atmosphere. The HARP2 and SPEXone polarimeters measure aerosol properties and cloud microphysics to study how particles scatter light in the atmosphere. PACE continues NASA's long-term record of ocean color measurements and extends it with far greater spectral capability than previous sensors.