NASA to Launch Orbiting Carbon Observatory in February

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory is the latest mission in NASA's ongoing study of the global carbon cycle. It is the first spacecraft dedicated to studying atmospheric carbon dioxide, the most significant human-produced greenhouse gas and the principal human-produced driver of climate change.

This experimental NASA Earth System Science Pathfinder Program mission will measure atmospheric carbon dioxide from space, mapping the globe once every 16 days for at least two years. It will do so with the accuracy, resolution and coverage needed to provide the first complete picture of the regional-scale geographic distribution and seasonal variations of both human and natural sources of carbon dioxide emissions and their sinks-the reservoirs that pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and store it.

Mission data will be used by the atmospheric and carbon cycle science communities to improve global carbon cycle models, reduce uncertainties in forecasts of how much carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere, and make more accurate predictions of global climate change.

The mission provides a key new measurement that can be combined with other ground and aircraft measurements and satellite data to answer important questions about the processes that regulate atmospheric carbon dioxide and its role in the carbon cycle and climate. This information could help policymakers and business leaders make better decisions to ensure climate stability and retain our quality of life. The mission will also serve as a pathfinder for future long-term satellite missions to monitor carbon dioxide.

Scientists want to better understand the processes responsible for regulating the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, because the increasing concentrations of this efficient greenhouse gas are warming our planet and changing its climate. The concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is determined by the balance between its sources, which emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and sinks, which remove this gas from the atmosphere. While natural sources roughly balance out natural sinks, human activities have thrown the natural carbon cycle out of balance.



The Orbiting Carbon Observatory will dramatically improve measurements of carbon dioxide over space and time, uniformly sampling Earth's land and ocean and collecting about 8,000,000 measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration over Earth's entire sunlit hemisphere every 16 days.

Following launch from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base aboard an Orbital Sciences Corporation Taurus XL rocket, the Orbiting Carbon Observatory will be placed in a near-polar Earth orbit at an altitude of 438 miles (705 kilometers), orbiting once every 98.8 minutes and repeating its orbit track every 16 days. It will fly in a loose formation with the other Earth-observing satellites of NASA's Afternoon Constellation, or "A-Train": Aura, Glory, Parasol, Calipso, CloudSat and Aqua. Flying in the A-Train will complement the mission's science return and facilitate observatory calibration and validation.

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Orbital Sciences Corporation, Dulles, Va., built the spacecraft and launch vehicle and provides mission operations under JPL's leadership. Hamilton Sundstrand, Pomona, Calif., designed and built the observatory's science instrument. NASA's Launch Services Program at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida is responsible for launch management.

Launch Information:
Spacecraft: Orbiting Carbon Observatory
Launch Vehicle: Orbital Sciences Taurus Rocket
Launch Location: Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.
Launch Pad: Space Launch Complex 576-E
Launch Date: Feb. 24, 2009
Launch Time: 1:51:30 a.m. PST (4:51:30 a.m. EST)