NASA instrument aboard SAC-D (Argentinean Space Agency satellite observatory) and the first to make space-based global observations of ocean surface salinity. Launched on 10 June 2011 aboard a Delta 2 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Aquarius/SAC-D was placed 657 kilometers above Earth in a Sun-synchronous polar orbit that repeats every seven days. The mission ended on 8 June 2015, when an essential part of the power and attitude control system for the SAC-D spacecraft stopped operating. The Aquarius instrument successfully achieved its science objectives and completed its primary three-year mission in November 2014, including the creation of the first global map of ocean saltiness in 2013.