PASADENA, Calif. NASA has selected Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., to launch the Orbiting Carbon Observatory2 (OCO2) mission. The spacecraft will fly in February 2013 aboard a Taurus XL 3110 rocket launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The total cost of the OCO2 launch services is approximately $70 million. The estimated cost includes the task ordered launch service for a Taurus XL 3110 rocket, plus additional services under other contracts for payload processing, OCO2 mission unique support, launch vehicle integration, and tracking, data and telemetry support. OCO2 is NASA's first mission dedicated to studying atmospheric carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is the leading human produced greenhouse gas driving changes in Earth's climate. OCO2 will provide the first complete picture of human and natural carbon dioxide sources and sinks, the places where the gas is pulled out of the atmosphere and stored. It will map the global geographic distribution of these sources and sinks and study their changes over time. The OCO-2 spacecraft will replace OCO-1, lost during a launch vehicle failure in 2009. The OCO2 project is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. NASA's Launch Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida is responsible for launch vehicle program management of the Taurus XL 3110 rocket. For more information about NASA and agency missions, visit: http://www.nasa.gov . For more on OCO-2, visit: http://oco.jpl.nasa.gov/ . This is an artist's concept of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory2. The mission, scheduled to launch in February 2013, will be the first spacecraft dedicated to studying atmospheric carbon dioxide, the principal human produced driver of climate change. It will provide the first global picture of the human and natural sources of carbon dioxide and the places where this important greenhouse gas is stored. Such information will improve global carbon cycle models as well as forecasts of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and of how our climate may change in the future. Image credit: NASA/JPL
标签: OCO-2
