<
https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/02/trump-tried-to-kill-it-but-nasas-new-climate-satellite-is-finally-in-orbit/>
"NASA's latest mission dedicated to observing Earth's oceans and atmosphere
from space rocketed into orbit from Florida early Thursday on a SpaceX launch
vehicle.
This mission will study phytoplankton, microscopic plants fundamental to the
marine food chain, and tiny particles called aerosols that play a key role in
cloud formation. These two constituents in the ocean and the atmosphere are
important to scientists' understanding of climate change. The mission's
acronym, PACE, stands for Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem.
Nestled in the nose cone of a Falcon 9 rocket, the PACE satellite took off from
Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, at 1:33 am EST (06:33 UTC)
Thursday after a two-day delay caused by poor weather.
Nine kerosene-fueled Merlin engines powered the Falcon 9 rocket southeast from
the launch site, then the reusable booster stage separated to begin maneuvers
to return back to Cape Canaveral for landing. Falcon 9's upper stage engine
steered the rocket and the PACE satellite on a southerly trajectory along
Florida's east coast.
Around 12 minutes after liftoff, NASA's nearly 2-ton PACE satellite deployed
from the Falcon 9 rocket into an on-target polar orbit at an altitude of
roughly 420 miles (676 kilometers). This was the first launch of a NASA
satellite into polar orbit from the Florida spaceport in more than 60 years.
These types of missions flying on north-south orbital tracks have typically
launched from California, but SpaceX reopened the polar orbit corridor from
Cape Canaveral for commercial missions beginning in 2020."
Via
Future Crunch:
<
https://futurecrunch.com/good-news-tolerance-poland-sanitation-indonesia-restoration-dominican-republic/
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
