QuikSCAT

QuikSCAT was a NASA satellite carrying the SeaWinds Ku-band scatterometer (about 13.4 GHz), launched 19 June 1999 and operating until November 2009 when the antenna rotation failed. Its conical pencil-beam radar measured ocean-surface wind speed and direction from the backscatter off wind-roughened water, returning daily near-global vector winds. The same Ku-band backscatter discriminated sea ice from open water and tracked ice extent, ice-type boundaries, and large icebergs, finding B10A in the Drake Passage days after turn-on. QuikSCAT data fed weather forecasting, marine safety, and the polar ice-edge record that ASCAT continued after 2009.