Late night launch! Tonight, in the wee hours (2:56AM) NASA will launch OCO-2 from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket. OCO, which stands for the Orbiting Carbon Observatory, will use a suite of specialized spectrometers to observe the carbon content of the Earths atmosphere. The main goal of this 2 year mission will be to observe the carbon cycle and meticulously track globally where all the extra carbon in our atmosphere is coming from, and how that carbon is getting reabsorbed. If tonights flight goes as planned it will be the first successful American mission of its kind. The 2 denotes the fact that the satellite is a carbon-copy (snort) of the original OCO spacecraft, which was lost in 2009 when its launch vehicle, an Orbital Sciences Taurus rocket, failed to reach orbit. This is mission is also noteworthy because it officially marks the beginning of the end for the Delta 2 family of rockets. From the 90s through the early 2000s, Delta 2 was Americas workhorse rocket of choice for medium-heavy payloads. However, with the event of the Atlas V and the Delta 4 rockets of the EELV program beginning in the mid-2000s, Delta 2 became less and less relevant. Since then, production of the launch vehicle has ended, and all of the remaining hardware that exists between completed launchers and spare pars is enough to support 5 more launches, this being the first of the last 5. It should be a good show! Coverage begins at 12:45 on nasa.gov/nasatv . I may just head to bed and watch a recording later, but if youre an insomniac, heres something to occupy your time ;) Rob Scherzer
Posted on: Tue, 01 Jul 2014 06:38:27 +0000
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