NASA Launches Satellite to Monitor Carbon Dioxide

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NASA Launches Satellite to Monitor Carbon Dioxide
SPACE.com
by Mike Wall, Senior Writer  6 hours ago



NASA launched the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 on July 2, 2014 to monitor atmospheric carbon dioxide from space.



NASA has launched its first spacecraft devoted to monitoring atmospheric carbon dioxide, the heat-trapping gas thought to be responsible for much of Earth's recent warming trend.

The space agency's Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 satellite (OCO-2) blasted off today (July 2) from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 5:56 a.m. EDT (0956 GMT, 2:56 a.m. local time), carried aloft by a United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket. The liftoff was originally scheduled for Tuesday (July 1), but a problem with the launch pad's water system caused a one-day delay.

The satellite will measure carbon dioxide levels in Earth's atmosphere 24 times every second, revealing in great detail where the gas is being produced and where it is being pulled out of the air — CO2 sources and sinks, in scientists' parlance.

"With the launch of this spacecraft, decision-makers and scientists will get a much better idea of the role of carbon dioxide in climate change, as OCO-2 measures this greenhouse gas globally and provides incredibly new insights into where and how carbon dioxide is moving into, and then out of, the atmosphere," Betsy Edwards, OCO-2 program executive at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C., told reporters during a pre-launch press briefing Sunday (June 30).

Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have risen from about 280 parts per million (ppm) before the Industrial Revolution to 400 ppm today, the highest concentration in at least 800,000 years.

Humanity is primarily responsible for this increase, researchers say. The species pumps 40 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year, chiefly by burning fossil fuels such as coal and gasoline; the planet's natural sinks remove just 20 billion tons annually, on average.

Six weeks or so from now, OCO-2 will maneuver into a polar orbit 438 miles (705 kilometers) above Earth, joining five other Earth-observation satellites in the A-Train constellation. ("A" is short for "afternoon," since these spacecraft cross the equator going north at about 1:30 p.m. local time every day.)

The new satellite will then begin using its single scientific instrument, a grading spectrometer, to measure carbon dioxide levels with an anticipated precision of 1 part per million, NASA officials have said. The spacecraft will zoom over the same swathe of Earth once every 16 days, allowing researchers to track changes in CO2 concentration over a variety of timescales.

"Ultimately, scientists predict that looking at these changes over time will give us patterns that are weeks or months or years long [and] that will help them to unravel the mysteries of the carbon cycle," Edwards said.



The Delta 2 rocket carrying NASA's OCO-2 spacecraft stands on the launch pad on July 2, 2014.


The $465-million mission has a nominal lifetime of two years, but the spacecraft has enough fuel to keep operating for much longer than that, OCO-2 team members have said.

This marks NASA's second attempt to monitor atmospheric carbon dioxide from orbit. The space agency's original Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) satellite crashed into the Pacific Ocean in February 2009 shortly after launch, when the nose-cone fairing of its Orbital Sciences Taurus XL rocket failed to open properly.

The original OCO mission cost just $275 million. The higher price tag of its successor, which features a nearly identical spacecraft, is partly a result of the decision to go with a different, bigger rocket, NASA officials have said.

The OCO-2 craft is the second of NASA's Earth-observation satellites to blast off in 2014, after the Global Precipitation Measurement Core Observatory, which launched Feb. 27. The space agency plans to loft three more Earth-science missions this year: the free-flying Soil Moisture Active Passive spacecraft, as well as ISS-RapidScat and the Cloud-Aerosol Transport System, two instruments that are slated to be installed aboard the International Space Station.


http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-launches-satellite-monitor-carbon-dioxide-105501971.html

[Buster's Uncle]

NASA carbon dioxide-hunting telescope reaches orbit
Reuters
By Irene Klotz  4 hours ago



CAPE CANAVERAL Fla. (Reuters) - An unmanned Delta 2 rocket blasted off from California on Wednesday, carrying a NASA science satellite to survey where carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas tied to climate change, is moving into and out of Earth’s atmosphere, a NASA Television broadcast showed.

The 127-foot-tall (39-meter) rocket lifted off at 2:56 a.m. PDT (5:56 a.m. EDT/0956 GMT) from Vandenberg Air Force Base, located about 150 miles (240 km) northwest of Los Angeles, and headed south over the Pacific Ocean.

The launch was timed so that NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory, or OCO, would end up at the front of a train of polar-orbiting environmental satellites that cross Earth’s equator every afternoon.

A launch attempt on Tuesday was called off because of a problem with the launch pad’s water system, which is needed to mitigate high temperatures and suppress acoustic vibrations of launch. Technicians replaced a failed valve, clearing rocket manufacturer United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Lockheed Martin and Boeing, for a second launch attempt.

Scientists have been waiting since 2009 for OCO to reach orbit. The original satellite was lost in a launch accident.

"We felt awful about this situation," Michael Miller, vice president of Orbital Sciences Corp, which built the satellite and the now-retired Taurus booster, said of the previous delays.

"We're very happy to see this new day," Miller said at a post-launch news conference.

OCO 2 is NASA's first mission dedicated to studying carbon dioxide, said Betsy Edwards, program executive at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

"This makes it of critical importance to the scientists who are trying to understand the impact of humans on global change," Edwards said at a prelaunch news conference.

Every year about 40 billion tons of carbon end up in Earth’s atmosphere, an amount that is increasing as the developing world modernizes, said atmospheric scientist Michael Gunson of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

Roughly half of the carbon is re-absorbed by forests and the ocean, a process that is not well understood.

"Understanding the details of those processes will give us some insight into the future and what’s likely to happen over the next decades, even if we continue to consume more and more fossil fuels and emit more and more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere,” Gunson said.

From its orbital perch 438 miles (705 km) above Earth, the spacecraft will collect hundreds of thousands of measurements daily. Its path around the planet will take it over the same spot at the same time every 16 days, allowing scientists to detect patterns in carbon dioxide levels over weeks, months and years.

“It’s really the fate of carbon dioxide once it’s in the atmosphere that we’re trying put our finger on,” Gunson said.

The $468 million mission is designed to last at least two years.

(Editing by Bill Trott)


http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-carbon-dioxide-hunting-telescope-reaches-orbit-121530546.html

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NASA launches carbon-tracking satellite
AFP
7 hours ago



Washington (AFP) - NASA on Wednesday launched a satellite designed to track carbon dioxide, a leading greenhouse gas that is responsible for global warming.

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 took off aboard a Delta 2 rocket at 2:56 am Pacific time (0956 GMT) from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

The successful takeoff was a boon to NASA, after two previous bids to send a carbon-tracking spacecraft into orbit failed due to rocket malfunctions in 2009 and 2011.

An attempt to launch the satellite Tuesday was also aborted at the last minute, after engineers discovered a problem with water flow to the launch pad.

The satellite is now on its way to join the A-Train, a constellation of five other international Earth-observing satellites.

"The OCO-2 mission will produce the most detailed picture to date of natural sources of carbon dioxide, as well as their 'sinks' -- places on Earth's surface where carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere," NASA said.

"The observatory will study how these sources and sinks are distributed around the globe and how they change over time."



The NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) mission is seen sitting on its launch pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California June 30, 2014. The Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 took off aboard a Delta 2 rocket at 2:56 am Pacific time (0956 GMT) from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Wednesday, July 2, 2014. The goal of the $468 million mission, designed to last at least two years, is to study the processes behind how the environment absorbs carbon dioxide. (REUTERS/Gene Blevins)


The OCO-2 will take 24 measurements of carbon in the atmosphere every second, about a million per day, but clouds are a major obstacle.

Its field of view is about one square mile (three square kilometers), so even wispy clouds can obscure its measurements.

NASA expects about 100,000 of the satellite's data snapshots from around the world daily will be sufficiently cloud-free to be useful.

Kevin Gurney, an associate professor at Arizona State University, Tempe, said the satellite will contribute to a series of NASA-funded efforts to measure fossil fuel emissions.

"This research and OCO-2 together will act like partners in closing the carbon budget, with my data products estimating movements from the bottom up and OCO-2 estimating sources from the top down," Gurney said.


http://news.yahoo.com/photos/nasa-launches-carbon-tracking-satellite-1404308187-slideshow/

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NASA launches carbon satellite after 2009 failure
Associated Press
2 hours ago



A rocket carrying a NASA satellite lit up the pre-dawn skies Wednesday on a mission to track atmospheric carbon dioxide, the chief culprit behind global warming. NASA lost a similar satellite in 2009 after a rocket hardware failure. (July 2)



VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (AP) — A rocket carrying a NASA satellite lit up the pre-dawn skies Wednesday on a mission to track atmospheric carbon dioxide, the chief culprit behind global warming.

The Delta 2 rocket blasted off from California at 2:56 a.m. and released the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 satellite in low-Earth orbit 56 minutes later, bringing relief to mission officials who lost a similar spacecraft five years ago.

The flight was "a perfect ride into space," said Ralph Basilio, the OCO-2 project manager, at a post-launch press conference.

Power-supplying solar arrays deployed, initial checks showed the spacecraft was healthy and two-way communications were established, he said.

The launch was canceled on Tuesday morning because of a failure in ground equipment.

NASA tried in 2009 to launch a satellite dedicated to studying carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas caused by the burning of fossil fuels. A satellite plunged into the ocean off Antarctica after a hardware failure with the Taurus XL rocket.



In this image released by NASA, a Delta 2 rocket with the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 satellite launches at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., Wednesday morning, July 2, 2014. The goal of the $468 million mission, designed to last at least two years, is to study the processes behind how the environment absorbs carbon dioxide. (AP Photo/NASA, Bill Ingalls)


After the loss, NASA spent several years and millions of dollars building a near-identical twin.

Like the original, OCO-2 was designed to measure atmospheric carbon dioxide from 438 miles above the Earth's surface. Its polar orbit will allow it to cover about 80 percent of the globe.

About 40 billion tons of carbon dioxide are released yearly from factories and cars. About half of the greenhouse gas is trapped in the atmosphere, while the rest is sucked up by trees and oceans.

The goal of the $468 million mission, designed to last at least two years, is to study the processes behind how the environment absorbs carbon dioxide.

NASA spent more money on the new mission, mainly because it is using a more expensive rocket. Engineers also had to replace obsolete satellite parts, which drove up the price tag.

Completing spacecraft system checks will take about two weeks and then OCO-2 will be moved into its operational orbit, joining a loose formation of other Earth-observing satellites informally called "the A-train," said Basilio, the project manager from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

There will then be a period of instrument checks.

Production of science data is expected early next year, he said.


http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-launches-carbon-satellite-2009-failure-102005081.html