Science@NASA | Science Casts | 2014 Sep 24
The International Space Station has been called a stepping stone to other worlds.Click to play embedded YouTube video.
NASA hasn't forgotten, however, that the behemoth space station is also on the doorstep of Earth.
"We're seeing the space station come into its own as an Earth-observing platform," says Julie Robinson, chief scientist for the International Space Station Program. "It has a different orbit than other Earth-observing satellites. It's closer to Earth, and it sees Earth at different times of day with a different schedule."
In short, the space station offers something unique to the study of our home planet.
Sometimes astronauts in low Earth orbit to see what regular satellites do not. In May 2013 for example, astronauts on board the International Space Station photographed a fresh eruption of the Pavlof Volcano in the Aleutian Islands. Their oblique perspective revealed the three dimensional structure of the ash plume, which was only 20,000 feet high, but many times longer. Down-looking satellites could not get the same kind of 3D information. ...