Megha-Tropiques
Megha-Tropiques
Deorbited Indo-French weather satellite
Megha-Tropiques was a satellite mission to study the water cycle in the tropical atmosphere in the context of climate change.[4] A collaborative effort between Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and French Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), Megha-Tropiques was successfully deployed into orbit by a PSLV rocket in October 2011.
Megha-Tropiques was initially scrapped in 2003, but later revived in 2004 after India increased its contribution and overall costs were lowered.[5][6] With the progress made by GEWEX (Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment), Megha-Tropiques was designed to understand tropical meteorological and climatic processes, by obtaining reliable statistics on the water and energy budget of the tropical atmosphere.[7] Megha-Tropiques complemented other data in regional monsoon projects such as MAHASRI and the completed GAME project.[8][9] Megha-Tropiques also sought to describe the evolution of major tropical weather systems. The focus was the repetitive measurement of the tropics.[10]