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#460 by Jim on 02 Jul, 2014 16:43
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that might not be possible given ITAR restrictions and that Aerojet Rocketdyne hasn't yet retired the engines, even though they are currently not in production.
There are many H-1's and MB-3's on display already, an RS-27 isn't much different. -
#461 by jacqmans on 02 Jul, 2014 18:09
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July 2, 2014
NASA Launches New Carbon-Sensing Mission to Monitor Earth’s Breathing
NASA successfully launched its first spacecraft dedicated to studying atmospheric carbon dioxide at 2:56 a.m. PDT (5:56 a.m. EDT) Wednesday.
The Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) raced skyward from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, on a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket. Approximately 56 minutes after the launch, the observatory separated from the rocket's second stage into an initial 429-mile (690-kilometer) orbit. The spacecraft then performed a series of activation procedures, established communications with ground controllers and unfurled its twin sets of solar arrays. Initial telemetry shows the spacecraft is in excellent condition.
OCO-2 soon will begin a minimum two-year mission to locate Earth’s sources of and storage places for atmospheric carbon dioxide, the leading human-produced greenhouse gas responsible for warming our world and a critical component of the planet’s carbon cycle.
"Climate change is the challenge of our generation," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "With OCO-2 and our existing fleet of satellites, NASA is uniquely qualified to take on the challenge of documenting and understanding these changes, predicting the ramifications, and sharing information about these changes for the benefit of society."
OCO-2 will take NASA's studies of carbon dioxide and the global carbon cycle to new heights. The 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. The observatory will study how these sources and sinks are distributed around the globe and how they change over time.
"This challenging mission is both timely and important," said Michael Freilich, director of the Earth Science Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "OCO-2 will produce exquisitely precise measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations near Earth's surface, laying the foundation for informed policy decisions on how to adapt to and reduce future climate change."
Carbon dioxide sinks are at the heart of a longstanding scientific puzzle that has made it difficult for scientists to accurately predict how carbon dioxide levels will change in the future and how those changing concentrations will affect Earth's climate.
"Scientists currently don't know exactly where and how Earth's oceans and plants have absorbed more than half the carbon dioxide that human activities have emitted into our atmosphere since the beginning of the industrial era," said David Crisp, OCO-2 science team leader at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. "Because of this we cannot predict precisely how these processes will operate in the future as climate changes. For society to better manage carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere, we need to be able to measure the natural source and sink processes."
Precise measurements of the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide are needed because background levels vary by less than two percent on regional to continental scales. Typical changes can be as small as one-third of one percent. OCO-2 measurements are designed to measure these small changes clearly.
During the next 10 days, the spacecraft will go through a checkout process and then begin three weeks of maneuvers that will place it in its final 438-mile (705-kilometer), near-polar operational orbit at the head of the international Afternoon Constellation, or "A-Train," of Earth-observing satellites. The A-Train, the first multi-satellite, formation flying "super observatory" to record the health of Earth's atmosphere and surface environment, collects an unprecedented quantity of nearly simultaneous climate and weather measurements.
OCO-2 science operations will begin about 45 days after launch. Scientists expect to begin archiving calibrated mission data in about six months and plan to release their first initial estimates of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations in early 2015.
The observatory will uniformly sample the atmosphere above Earth's land and waters, collecting more than 100,000 precise individual measurements of carbon dioxide over Earth's entire sunlit hemisphere every day. Scientists will use these data in computer models to generate maps of carbon dioxide emission and uptake at Earth’s surface on scales comparable in size to the state of Colorado. These regional-scale maps will provide new tools for locating and identifying carbon dioxide sources and sinks.
OCO-2 also will measure a phenomenon called solar-induced fluorescence, an indicator of plant growth and health. As plants photosynthesize and take up carbon dioxide, they fluoresce and give off a tiny amount of light that is invisible to the naked eye. Because more photosynthesis translates into more fluorescence, fluorescence data from OCO-2 will help shed new light on the uptake of carbon dioxide by plants.
OCO-2 is a NASA Earth System Science Pathfinder Program mission managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Orbital Sciences Corporation in Dulles, Virginia, built the spacecraft bus and provides mission operations under JPL’s leadership. The science instrument was built by JPL, based on the instrument design co-developed for the original OCO mission by Hamilton Sundstrand in Pomona, California. NASA's Launch Services Program at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida is responsible for launch management. Communications during all phases of the mission are provided by NASA's Near Earth Network, with contingency support from the Space Network. Both are divisions of the Space Communications and Navigation program at NASA Headquarters. JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
For more information about OCO-2, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/oco2
OCO-2 is the second of five NASA Earth science missions scheduled to launch into space this year, the most new Earth-observing mission launches in one year in more than a decade. NASA monitors Earth’s vital signs from land, air and space with a fleet of satellites and ambitious airborne and ground-based observation campaigns. NASA develops new ways to observe and study Earth’s interconnected natural systems with long-term data records and computer analysis tools to better see how our planet is changing. The agency shares this unique knowledge with the global community and works with institutions in the United States and around the world that contribute to understanding and protecting our home planet.
For more information about NASA's Earth science activities in 2014, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/earthrightnow
Follow OCO-2 on Twitter at:
https://twitter.com/IamOCO2
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#462 by jacqmans on 02 Jul, 2014 18:10
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Orbital-Built OCO-2 Satellite Successfully Launched
-- Initial Spacecraft Testing and Activation Now Underway; Mission’s Science Operations to Begin Later This Year --
-- OCO-2 Is NASA’s First Satellite Dedicated to Making Space-Based Measurements of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide --
DULLES, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul. 2, 2014-- Orbital Sciences Corporation (NYSE: ORB), one of the world’s leading space technology companies, today announced the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) satellite, built by the company for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, CA, was successfully launched into orbit aboard a Delta II rocket earlier today. Lift-off occurred at 2:56 a.m. (PDT) from Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA. The satellite was successfully deployed into its targeted 430-mile (690-kilometer) altitude orbit approximately 56 minutes after launch. JPL and Orbital engineers have begun a comprehensive series of in-orbit tests to verify all spacecraft systems are functioning properly. Orbital will manage day-to-day in-orbit operations of the satellite from the company’s Mission Operations Center at its Dulles, VA campus for the duration of the program. JPL expects OCO-2 science operations to begin later in 2014.
“The initial check-out and testing process indicates the OCO-2 mission is proceeding smoothly,” said Mr. Mike Miller, Orbital’s Senior Vice President of Science and Environmental Satellite Programs. “OCO-2 will help scientists understand the sources of carbon dioxide emissions and the natural process that removes it from the atmosphere. We are proud to team with JPL in this important mission and we look forward to the successful commissioning of the spacecraft in the coming weeks.”
At launch, the OCO-2 satellite weighed approximately 990 pounds (450 kilograms). The observatory has single-axis articulated arrays and three-axis attitude control to ensure high precision in positioning. It will operate in a 435-mile (700-kilometer) altitude, near-polar orbit with five other satellites as part of the Afternoon (A-Train) Constellation. This international fleet of Earth-observing satellites circle the globe once every 98 minutes in a sun-synchronous orbit that crosses the equator near 1:30 p.m. local time and repeats the same ground track every 16 days. OCO-2 will be inserted at the head of the A-Train where it is designed to operate for at least two years.
OCO-2 is the 151st satellite Orbital has built and delivered to commercial, civil government and national security customers over the past 32 years. Orbital-built satellites have now amassed approximately 1,100 years of in-orbit experience, a number that will continue to grow as the company is scheduled to deploy up to nine spacecraft in 2014 for commercial communications, space station logistics, scientific research and national security missions.
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#463 by jacqmans on 02 Jul, 2014 18:11
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OCO-2 Launch Updates
Solar Arrays Deploy Successfully to Complete OCO-2 Launch
The OCO-2 spacecraft deployed a pair of solar arrays on schedule to begin charging its batteries in orbit about an hour after the launch of the mission aboard a Delta II rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
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#464 by Galactic Penguin SST on 02 Jul, 2014 23:59
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#465 by baldusi on 03 Jul, 2014 04:24
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Honestly, one could probably learn more to have the subcontractor parts (engines, boxes) displayed in museums or donated to a university or vo-tech school (or better yet traveling to many schools) than having an assembled vehicle displayed in the same fashion.
AIUI the Smithsonian is also a reserve of fully functional hardware for historical and technology recording principles. That was why Discovery was asked to keep as much of the MPS and the rest of the equipment as possible. I understand that for a museum display, it wouldn't need to follow a full certified process, either. -
#466 by sdsds on 03 Jul, 2014 04:33
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donated to a university or vo-tech school (or better yet traveling to many schools)
Yup. Imagine being able to pass around a classroom an RS-27A injector plate. Anybody, from a vocational school machinist wannabe to a computational fluid dynamics math geek, could look at that and know what an "A+" looks like!
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#467 by Antares on 03 Jul, 2014 13:32
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Or did, for its state of the art at the time. Onward and upward.
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#468 by catdlr on 03 Jul, 2014 21:14
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OCO-2 Takes the A-Train to Study Earth's Atmosphere
July 03, 2014
Every day, above our planet, five Earth-observing satellites rush along like trains on the same "track," flying minutes, and sometimes seconds, behind one another. They carry more than 15 scientific instruments in total, looking at many different aspects of our home planet. Called the Afternoon Constellation, or A-Train, these satellites work as a united, powerful tool for advancing our understanding of Earth's surface and atmosphere.
The train is about to get longer. NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2), which launched July 2, will be the A-Train's sixth member. Its mission is to measure atmospheric carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that makes up a greater percentage of our atmosphere today than it has in at least 800,000 years. It will produce data that will help scientists analyze data from the other A-Train instruments. In return, other satellites will help validate its vital data.
"The A-Train constellation is an ideal measurement system for us," said Dave Crisp, the leader of the OCO-2 science team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
OCO-2 will fly along the same path as NASA satellites CALIPSO (Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation) and CloudSat, which monitor minute particles in the atmosphere called aerosols, and clouds, respectively. "We've lined up the ground tracks of OCO-2, CALIPSO and CloudSat almost perfectly, and we're hoping to keep them well aligned for as long as possible during the missions, so we can do the science we want with measurements from all three satellites," Crisp said.
OCO-2 measures carbon dioxide by observing its effect on sunlight. Sunlight is made up of waves of many lengths, or frequencies, some visible and others invisible. As sunlight passes through the atmosphere, carbon dioxide and other molecules absorb specific frequencies in the spectrum of light, leaving dark, narrow gaps in the spectrum. The more light that has been absorbed in a certain column of air, the more carbon dioxide is present there. In some cases, this may suggest that Earth's surface beneath that air contains a source of carbon dioxide, like a large industrial city. Less carbon dioxide implies a "sink," which absorbs carbon dioxide, like a thick forest during the growing season.
The OCO-2 spacecraft carries a single instrument composed of three spectrometers that measure different regions of the spectrum of light. One of these spectrometers observes the spectrum of molecular oxygen, referred to as the A-band spectrum. This is important because molecular oxygen is a relatively constant fraction of the atmosphere and can be used as a reference for measurements of other atmospheric gases, such as carbon dioxide. In addition to being critical for calibrating the carbon dioxide concentrations, it also tells scientists how much sunlight is absorbed or reflected by the aerosols and clouds, features that CALIPSO and CloudSat observe.
"If we combine the A-band spectrometer's measurements with information on aerosols and clouds from CALIPSO and CloudSat, we can use that information to estimate the amount of absorption of sunlight by these airborne particles, which is something we cannot currently do," said Dave Winker, principal investigator for the CALIPSO mission.
CloudSat and CALIPSO also help clarify OCO-2's data. The observatory uses its A-band spectrometer to find out how far sunlight has traveled before it reaches the satellite (its optical path) -- vital information for finding sources and sinks. A tiny mistake in the path-length measurement can introduce serious errors in the satellite's carbon dioxide measurements. Often clouds and aerosols in Earth's atmosphere reflect some sunlight back toward space before it reaches the surface, shortening sunlight's path and confusing the spectrometer about the distance to Earth. But CALIPSO and CloudSat's data about the location and height of aerosols and clouds can verify OCO-2's path-length measurements and determine what kept the sun from reaching Earth's surface.
"To check OCO-2's accuracy, we can compare it to CloudSat and CALIPSO. These measurements are synergistic," Crisp said.
Winker noted, "From OCO-2's point of view, CALIPSO is going to be very important in validating their measurement by correcting for cloud and aerosol effects. That these two satellites are flying together is a key part of the mission."
The A-Train's other satellites support OCO-2's work, too. MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer), an instrument on the Aqua satellite, tracks cloud cover. AIRS (Atmospheric Infrared Sounder), another Aqua instrument, measures air temperature and the amount of water content in the atmosphere. To accurately measure carbon dioxide, scientists must know all those details.
"We have the platforms that can tell us about water vapor and temperature, as well as clouds from the CloudSat satellite, the CALIPSO satellite, the AIRS instrument, and the MODIS instrument. This is the right place to fly OCO-2," Crisp said.
For more information about OCO-2, visit these sites:
http://www.nasa.gov/oco2
http://oco.jpl.nasa.gov
NASA monitors Earth's vital signs from land, air and space with a fleet of satellites and ambitious airborne and ground-based observation campaigns. NASA develops new ways to observe and study Earth's interconnected natural systems with long-term data records and computer analysis tools to better see how our planet is changing. The agency shares this unique knowledge with the global community and works with institutions in the United States and around the world that contribute to understanding and protecting our home planet.
For more information about NASA's Earth science activities in 2014, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/earthrightnow
Alan Buis
818-354-0474
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
[email protected]
Written by Rosalie Murphy
JPL Earth Science and Technology Directorate
2014-219
Picture Credit: NASA
OCO-2 will become the leader of the Afternoon Constellation OCO-2 will become the leader of the Afternoon Constellation, or A-Train, as shown in this artist's concept. Japan's Global Change Observation Mission - Water (GCOM-W1) satellite and NASA's Aqua, CALIPSO, CloudSat and Aura satellites follow.
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#469 by Prober on 05 Jul, 2014 16:44
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Here's the article on the main site by William Graham:
ULA Delta II successfully lofts OCO-2 to orbit
Disappointed to see that there areQuoteNo related posts.
excellent history in that article well done William
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#470 by catdlr on 19 Jul, 2014 04:04
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OCO-2 Data to Lead Scientists Forward into the Past
July 18, 2014
NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2, which launched on July 2, will soon be providing about 100,000 high-quality measurements each day of carbon dioxide concentrations from around the globe. Atmospheric scientists are excited about that. But to understand the processes that control the amount of the greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, they need to know more than just where carbon dioxide is now. They need to know where it has been. It takes more than great data to figure that out.
"In a sense, you're trying to go backward in time and space," said David Baker, a scientist at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. "You're reversing the flow of the winds to determine when and where the input of carbon at the Earth's surface had to be to give you the measurements you see now."
Harry Potter used a magical time turner to travel to the past. Atmospheric scientists use a type of computer model called a chemical transport model. It combines the atmospheric processes found in a climate model with additional information on important chemical compounds, including their reactions, their sources on Earth's surface and the processes that remove them from the air, known as sinks.
Baker used the example of a forest fire to explain how a chemical transport model works. "Where the fire is, at that point in time, you get a pulse of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from the burning carbon in wood. The model's winds blow it along, and mixing processes dilute it through the atmosphere. It gradually gets mixed into a wider and wider plume that eventually gets blown around the world."
Some models can be run backward in time -- from a point in the plume back to the fire, in other words -- to search for the sources of airborne carbon dioxide. The reactions and processes that must be modeled are so complex that researchers often cycle their chemical transport models backward and forward through the same time period dozens of times, adjusting the model as each set of results reveals new clues. "You basically start crawling toward a solution," Baker said. "You may not be crawling straight toward the best answer, but you course-correct along the way."
Lesley Ott, a climate modeler at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, noted that simulating carbon dioxide's atmospheric transport correctly is a prerequisite for improving the way global climate models simulate the carbon cycle and how it will change with our changing climate. "If you get the transport piece right, then you can understand the piece about sources and sinks," she said. "More and better-quality data from OCO-2 are going to create better characterization of global carbon."
Baker noted that the volume of data provided by OCO-2 will improve knowledge of carbon processes on a finer scale than is currently possible. "With all that coverage, we'll be able to resolve what's going on at the regional scale," Baker said, referring to areas the size of Texas or France. "That will help us understand better how the forests and oceans take up carbon. There are various competing processes, and right now we're not sure which ones are most important."
Ott pointed out that improving the way global climate models represent carbon dioxide provides benefits far beyond the scientific research community. "Trying to figure out what national and international responses to climate change should be is really hard," she said. "Politicians need answers quickly. Right now we have to trust a very small number of carbon dioxide observations. We're going to have a lot better coverage because so much more data is coming, and we may be able to see in better detail features of the carbon cycle that were missed before." Taking those OCO-2 data backward in time may be the next step forward on the road to understanding and adapting to climate change.
To learn more about the OCO-2 mission, visit these websites:
http://www.nasa.gov/oco2
http://oco.jpl.nasa.gov
NASA monitors Earth's vital signs from land, air and space with a fleet of satellites and ambitious airborne and ground-based observation campaigns. NASA develops new ways to observe and study Earth's interconnected natural systems with long-term data records and computer analysis tools to better see how our planet is changing. The agency shares this unique knowledge with the global community and works with institutions in the United States and around the world that contribute to understanding and protecting our home planet.
For more information about NASA's Earth science activities in 2014, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/earthrightnow
OCO-2 is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.
Alan Buis
818-354-0474
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
[email protected]
Written by Carol Rasmussen
NASA Earth Science News Team
2014-237
Image:
Scientists will use measurements from the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 to track atmospheric carbon dioxide to sources such as these wildfires in Siberia, whose smoke plumes quickly carry the greenhouse gas worldwide. The fires were imaged on May 18 by NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer instrument on the Terra satellite. Image credit: NASA/LANCE/EOSDIS Rapid Response
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#471 by catdlr on 25 Jul, 2014 23:31
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additional pre-launch footage:
NASA EDGE: OCO-2 Launch
Published on Jul 25, 2014
NASA EDGE takes a close look at the Orbiting Carbon Observatory before it's successful launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base. Special guests include NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden, Ralph Basilio (OCO-2) and more. To watch the entire live webcast from July 1, 2014, visit the NASA EDGE ustream channel at www.ustream.tv/nasaedge
