The Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO)-2 is a satellite NASA developed to study atmospheric carbon dioxide from outer space. After a water flow problem on Tuesday, NASA postponed the satellite's launch until Wednesday morning, where it took off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
The United Launch Alliance's Delta II rocket launched at 5:56 a.m. Eastern time and will carry the OCO-2 satellite into a polar orbit of the Earth. The satellite will cross over the Arctic and Antarctic regions approximately 438 miles above the Earth's surface during the orbit and it will be first ever spacecraft to provide detailed readings of regional sources of carbon dioxide.
Due to concerns over climate change because of greenhouse gas emissions, the launch of OCO-2 is a step forward in documenting the Earth's concentration of such harmful gases. The United States and China - the two countries responsible for the most greenhouse gas emissions - have already made cutbacks and set emission goals for the future, but much damage has been done. The OCO-2 will determine what needs to be conducted in order to improve the current state of affairs.
Through a collection of high-resolution measurements, the OCO-2 aims to provide a greater spatial distribution of carbon dioxide across the world in a bigger, clearer, and more complete picture as opposed to relying on questionable data from a number of sources. Such information is expected to help the world be more cognizant of the processes that regulate atmospheric carbon dioxide and its role in the carbon cycle.
"There's quite a lot of urgency to see what we can get from a satellite like OCO-2," said David Crisp, the science team lead for the mission, in this NASA news release.
"We've been preparing for the OCO-2 mission for almost two years now," said Tim Dunn, the launch manager for OCO-2, in the same release. "The biggest challenge has been in bringing the Delta II launch vehicle out of retirement. The last time we launched on a Delta II was October 2011, a weather satellite."
The $465 million mission is expected to last for at least two years. The spectrometer aboard the satellite will measure carbon dioxide concentrations in the Earth's atmosphere 24 times per second by counting the number of CO2 molecules in the layers of the atmosphere. NASA scientists will receive the information from the satellite at a ground-based data network to appropriately quantify the measurements in each region of the world.
You can read more about the satellite and mission on the OCO-2 Overview webpage.
