Stratospheric aerosol and gas experiment III (SAGE III) mission aboard the International Space Station

This paper presents the SAGE III mission for the International Space Station. SAGE III is fifth in a series of instruments developed to monitor aerosols and gaseous constituents in the stratosphere and troposphere. Three instruments are being developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Langley Research Center for the Earth Science Enterprise: one for a high-inclined orbit aboard the Russian Meteor-3M (M3M) spacecraft; one for a mid-inclined (51.6 deg) orbit on the International Space Station, the subject of this paper; and a third for a potential flight of opportunity (FOO) mission. The SAGE III/ISS payload is comprised of international components: a pointing platform called the Hexapod, provided by the European Space Agency and the Expedite the Processing of Experiments to International Space Station (ISS) (EXPRESS) pallet adapter, (part of a carrier system to be built by Brazil for NASA. The SAGE III/ISS mission is manifested for a launch on the ISS Utilization Flight (UF) 3, currently scheduled to launch February 2003.