NASA on Wednesday successfully launched a satellite designed to track atmospheric carbon dioxide, a leading human-produced greenhouse gas responsible for global warming. The Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) satellite is now in orbit after launching from Vandenberg Air Force Station, California, NASA said.
liftoff was on scheduled following the replacement of a defective solenoid valve that prevented water flow into the sound suppression system that caused the scrub minutes ahead of launch on Tuesday.
OCO-2 is NASA’s first mission dedicated to studying atmospheric carbon dioxide, the leading human-produced greenhouse gas driving changes in Earth’s climate.
“The OCO-2 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,” NASA said.
“The observatory will study how these sources and sinks are distributed around the globe and how they change over time,” the space agency said. Although scientists know the concentration of carbon dioxide, much about the processes that govern the gas’s atmospheric concentration remains a mystery.