Sunday Times 2
NASA carbon dioxide-hunting telescope reaches orbit
View(s):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.
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, said of the previous delays.
“We’re very happy to see this new day,” Miller said at a post-launch news conference.