NASA Orbiting Carbon Observatory on a Taurus XL Ready for Launch

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif., (NASA) — The launch of NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory, or OCO, aboard a Taurus XL rocket is scheduled for Feb. 24. Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 576-E at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., is set for 1:51:30 a.m. PST during a 4-and-a-half-minute launch window. The spacecraft’s final polar orbit will be 438 miles.

OCO is NASA’s first spacecraft dedicated to studying atmospheric carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is the leading human-produced greenhouse gas driving changes in Earth’s climate. OCO will provide the first complete picture of human and natural carbon dioxide sources as well as their “sinks,” the places where carbon dioxide 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 new observatory will dramatically improve global carbon dioxide data, collecting about eight million precise measurements every 16 days for at least two years.

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