NASA Readies Three Important Climate Science Satellites For 2010 Launches

By Clay Dillow Posted 01.11.2010 at 5:17 pm 13 Comments

Space Shuttle Columbia Launches on STS-1 April 12, 1981, the Space Shuttle Program lifts off. It will wind down this year. NASA

Nothing lasts forever -- especially when it's government-funded -- and so, with just a few more missions, NASA will wrap up the Space Shuttle program in the year ahead, putting the period on a long chapter in America's history in space. But as its flagship shuttle program goes out to pasture for good, NASA will put an important three-piece climate research legacy into orbit that will help scientists going forward keep tabs on both global warming and solar weather events that affect life here on Earth.

The first of the satellites to launch -- the Solar Dynamics Laboratory -- will provide solar weather updates to its overseers at Goddard Space Flight Center for at least five years, helping researchers to define correlations between the sun's weather and our own. Launching February 3, the $844 million hardware will help scientists predict dangerous events like solar flares, sunspots and magnetic storms that, aside from causing electrical interference on Earth, can put manned space missions in jeopardy.

The two earth-focused satellites, Aquarius and Glory, will beam important atmospheric and oceanic data to researchers on the ground, hopefully informing the climate debate and adding to the cannon of climate data available to policy makers. Aquarius' launch date has yet to be set, but the craft -- a joint project with Argentina -- will spend at least three years monitoring salinity levels in seawater across the globe.

Current earth-bound means of measuring salinity leave researchers with an incomplete and non-cohesive picture of what the oceans really look like at any given moment. Aquarius' radiometers can detect even small changes in salt levels, allowing scientists to see how fresh water melting from ice caps distributes itself into the greater ocean and see how salt moves through currents.

With the oceans thoroughly covered, Glory will observe the effects of aerosols moving through the atmosphere on Earth's climate for the next three years in an attempt to determine their role on Earth's temperature. Scientists know aerosols affect global temperatures by either absorbing or reflecting solar radiation, but the nature of this process is not very well understood. Researchers hope Glory will give them better insight into the effects of aerosols, and at $419 million for the rig, it better.

The total cost of the 2010 satellite launches using single-use rockets tops $1.5 billion (Aquarius is costing NASA $273 million, with Argentina kicking in its share as well), so there's little room to argue that 2010 is a lame-duck year for NASA. But the success of the missions is two-fold; the benefit of more informed atmospheric, oceanographic and solar weather data will surely have an effect on the climate change debate, but it will also prove the relevance of maintaining an active and ambitious space program at a time when its future is uncertain.

The headline and opening text of this piece originally suggested, in error, that the shuttle program would launch the SDO, Aquarius, and Glory into orbit. Those satellites will be carried into space by unmanned Atlas V, Delta II 7320 and Taurus rockets, respectively. The story above has been amended to reflect this. More info on NASA's launch schedule can be found here.

[Los Angeles Times]

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13 Comments

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Seriously

01/11/10 at 6:19 pm

No, you mean NASA might lose money if "Climate Change" or "Global Warming" or whatever the flavor of the week is, was found out to be false?

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CoolHand032

01/11/10 at 6:47 pm

I know I'm being a stickler here, but it's Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO.

On topic of the article though, I really look forward to the results. SDO specifically could show us much about the solar weather and it's effect on Earth. Also interesting is how it reacts with the lunar regolith, which NASA announced recently could react with the Hydrogen atoms from solar wind to form H20 for some amount of time (results from LCROSS and LRO).

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Cookiees453

01/11/10 at 7:03 pm

Climate change on Earth has been happening since it's creation, that's a fact. What's being debated is whether or not our Earth is cooling, warming, both of these things, if humankind is speeding up this process, or all of these things and more. And as far as Nasa is concerned, private companies have taken the responsibility of helping them complete their future missions, which include establishing a moon and mars base, and exploring the universe and beyond. There's plenty of money in the private sector, and there's 15+ companies involved, so don't you worry.

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GTO

01/11/10 at 7:40 pm

How quickly will we be able to do orbital repairs on satellites and the space station without an orbital vehicle?

Are they really farming the whole thing out to the private sector? Good in the long run sure but in the short? Is NASA just going to give up all of its hard earned data to the public for free?

I also wonder how the commercialization of space will effect diplomatic relations between countries.

Those who own space own the world.

--GTO--

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GTO

01/11/10 at 7:40 pm

How quickly will we be able to do orbital repairs on satellites and the space station without an orbital vehicle?

Are they really farming the whole thing out to the private sector? Good in the long run sure but in the short? Is NASA just going to give up all of its hard earned data to the public for free?

I also wonder how the commercialization of space will effect diplomatic relations between countries.

Those who own space own the world.

--GTO--

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GTO

01/11/10 at 7:40 pm

my bad on double post

--GTO--

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Cookiees453

01/11/10 at 8:42 pm

Space should be for everyone, not certain countries. Maybe in the beginning people will fight over it, but I hope in the future, planet Earth is united and at peace, and exploring the galaxy, meeting alien civilizations, if you believe in such a thing, like in Star trek. I read somewhere Nasa was talking with Russia and the European Space Agency to help with their missions as well, so it doesn't seem like the private sector is their only choice.

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Cookiees453

01/11/10 at 8:44 pm

The colonization and exploration of the Universe should be humankind's goal, not just one nation. We need to start thinking as one giant entity, not separate.

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Craigboy

01/12/10 at 3:32 am

I agree cookiees.

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WakaWaka

01/12/10 at 9:12 am

@ cookies
i second that motion

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Oakspar77777

01/12/10 at 10:23 am

But it is the competetive drive between nations that drives upward exspansion (whether in space or who can create the next tallest phallic representation and call it a skyscraper). That competition will be important to drive progress until mankind actually finds something fiscally expoiltable up in the heavens. At that point, private enterprize will gladly take over. (ie Columbus was funded by the government, but once it was found profitable, private entities, like the Virginia Company, quickly got into the action).

Also, why the Kirk-esq single humanity? You will note even on the "melting pot" that was the Enterprise, it was the various nationalities that were represented - not a mixed race utopia, but one from many of the human sub-sub-species. The only mixed race character was a human/alien hybrid. Modernism at its most boring.

Nature teaches us that diversity equals stability. Post-modernism drives us there. Once humanity has broken free, not of Earth, but of Sol, then humanity is likly not to progress as a whole, but further scatter and diversify across the solar system. There was an article here not long ago about setting up mini civilizations on abandoned off-shore rigs. Note that the idea and most of the comments were about creating independence, not unity.

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Azorus

01/12/10 at 10:47 am

Agrees with Oak, we need competition. the problem is weather or not we take part in the competition.

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burak111

07/31/10 at 11:12 am