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NASA Launches Aura Satellite

Posted by michael on from the holey-moley dept.

ukcollin writes "NASA successfully launched the Aura satellite today after several previous failed attempts. The Aura satellite was launched by a 12-story Delta 2 rocket, at 6:01am (EST) from Vandenberg AFB in California. The satellite is reported to have cost in excess of $785 million dollars, and its main mission will be to study the Earth's ozone to try and determine if the ozone hole is shrinking or increasing. Although it will be focused on the stratosphere (the ozone layer), it will also be tracking pollution, climate changes, etc. by scanning and analyzing each of Earth's atmospheric levels all the way down to the troposphere."

5 of 20 comments (clear)

  1. Spaceflight Now status by brownpau · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Also see SpaceflightNow's Live Status Report.

  2. 19 min till first post? by Retric · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I guess nobody cares how the ozone doing? Or perhaps $785 million is not what it used to be.

    Or maybe launching something into space is not a big deal and even if people are willing to debate the results of science even though they don't care about the people / things that carry it out. PS: 19 min till first post?

  3. A little irony by Neil+Blender · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The Delta 2 rocket is the third most atmospheric polluting rocket currently being used in the world (behind the Space Shuttle and Titan 4s). Every launch creates a mini hole in the ozone layer due to emissions from the solid fuel rockets spewing out hydrogen chloride and aluminum oxide.

    1. Re:A little irony by Neil+Blender · · Score: 3, Informative

      Um, not that I automatically disbelieve you or anything, but could you elaborate and/or cite some sources?

      Here is an article.

      Please note that I made no claim to the amount of ozone a single rocket launch depletes, it is fairly small. But rockets do destroy ozone, lots of rockets are launched every year, and the number of launches is undoubtedly going to increase as time goes on.

  4. Laser printer and photocopy the planet to safety by Andy+Mitchell · · Score: 5, Funny

    It just occured to be that as laser printers and photcopiers generate ozone, if we all just print more stuff on paper made from sustainable forestry we will have all the ozone we need and remove surplus CO2 from the atmosphere :-)

    Now, before anyone takes me too seriously and prints a copy of every RFC ever written "to save the planet", this doesn't really work. For a start ozone at low altitude is just a toxic gas that will not help protect us from UV....