Introduction
The Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) was initially designed in the late-1980s and early-1990s as a facility instrument for NASA’s Earth Observing System (EOS). Since its inception, NASA’s Langley Research Center (LaRC) has led this effort. CERES has a long history with seven different instruments flying on five different missions since 1997. As of today, six CERES instruments remain in orbit – two are no longer operational: the Proto-Flight Model (PFM) unit flew on the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) and functioned for a brief period, and FM2, which was powered-off in January 2025 due to battery constraints on Terra. The active CERES instruments are found on Terra (FM1), Aqua (FM3 and 4), the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) (FM5), and the first Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS-1) mission, now known as NOAA-20 (FM6). Suomi NPP and the JPSS mission are partnerships between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which owns the satellites, and NASA, which operates them.
The CERES Team has maintained a history of its Science Team (ST) Meetings, recorded in The Earth Observer. The first CERES STM to be mentioned in the newsletter was the third meeting [Jan. 1990, 2:1, 7], which was listed on the “EOS Calendar.” The earliest full STM summary captured events from the seventh meeting in Fall 1992, CERES Science Team [Jan.–Feb. 1993, 5:1, 11–16]. Since then, the periodic reports (typically spring and fall) have kept readers up to date on the status of the CERES instruments in orbit and the science results from the data gathered. With such a long hist …