5 Years Behind Original Schedule, Joint Polar Satellite System Vehicle Successfully Launches In CA

[hatrack]

Five years after its original launch date, a new observation satellite lifted off on Friday in California with a new generation of observation tools critical to weather forecasters and climate scientists alike.

At 5:48 a.m., scattered clapping and cheers rippled through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Satellite Operations Facility in Suitland, Md., as agency officials and staff watched the launch of NASA’s first N.P.O.E.S.S. Preparatory Program satellite at Vandenberg Air Force Base on a bank of screens. (The cumbersome initials stand for National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System, but the program is generally known as N.P.P).

The satellite, a joint effort between NASA and NOAA, will be overseen at the latter agency’s Maryland hub, which operates 17 satellites altogether.

The satellite is the first in the Joint Polar Satellite System generation of orbiters, which will deploy the most up-to-date instruments available to improve weather predictions.


EDIT

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/28/long-awaited-climate-satellite-lifts-off/