Within days of its launch aboard a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle from the Indian Space Research Organization on June 22, 2016, the SkySat-3 satellite from Terra Bella (formerly Skybox Imaging) delivered its first images.
High Traffic on Space Station Docking Bays
Expedition 47 Flight Engineer Tim Peake of the European Space Agency (ESA) took this photograph on April 6, 2016, as the International Space Station flew over Madagascar, showing three of the five spacecraft docked to the station.
Sentinel Satellites Deliver First Combined Image
The twin Sentinel-1A and 1B satellites, orbiting 180-degrees apart at an altitude of almost 700 kilometers, provided their first combined radar image, demonstrating a capability to reveal small deformations in Earth's surface.
Great Barrier Reef Section Seen from Space
An astronaut aboard the International Space Station used a powerful lens to photograph these three reefs in Australia's Great Barrier Reef. The area spans about 15 kilometers of the 2,300-kilometer reef system.
New Zealand Volcano Shows Activity
Mount Ruapehu is a 2,797-meter (9,177-foot) peak on New Zealand's North Island that's popular with skiers and snowboarders and other outdoor adventurers. One of the most-active volcanos in New Zealand, major eruptions occur approximately every 50 years, most recently in 1895, 1945 and 1995.
International Space Station Ejecting CubeSats
In May 2016, 17 CubeSats were released by the NanoRacks CubeSat Deployer on the International Space Station. The Dove satellites are part of a constellation designed, built and operated by Planet Labs to take Earth images for humanitarian and environmental applications ranging from monitoring deforestation and urbanization to improving natural-disaster relief and agricultural yields in developing nations.
Satellites Detect Rare and Remote Volcanic Island Eruption
In late April and early May 2016, satellite sensors detected signs of a volcanic eruption in the far South Atlantic Ocean between South America and Antarctica. Mount Sourabaya, a stratovolcano on Bristol Island, appeared to be erupting for the first time in 60 years.
Operation IceBridge Image of Greenland
Operation IceBridge, NASA's airborne survey of polar ice, recently returned from the Umanaq B mission along Greenland's western coast, marking its eighth spring campaign of science flights over Arctic sea and land.
Greenland Coast Showing Signs of Ice Melt
A graphic built from three different images collected by the European Space Agency's Sentinel-1A radar shows sea-ice change along northeast Greenland's coast.
Satellite Spies Africa's Oldest Desert and Largest Game Park
A colorful image of central western Namibia, taken on Jan. 28, 2016, by the European Space Agency (ESA) Sentinel-2A satellite, details the world's oldest desert: the Namib. Also present is the Namib Naukluft National Park, the largest game park in Africa and the fourth largest in the world.
