SpaceX Gets Set to Launch DSCOVR Satellite, Then Land Falcon Rocket (STA BREAKING NEWS and ARCHIVES)

by Theresa , Friday, February 06, 2015, 17:54

Sunday's scheduled liftoff of the DSCOVR satellite could mark the realization of a dream as old as Al Gore's vice presidency and as new as SpaceX founder Elon Musk's vision of rocket reusability.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is due to launch DSCOVR — that is, the Deep Space Climate ObserVatoRy — from Cape Canaveral Air Force Base at 6:10 p.m. ET Sunday.

The satellite will eventually take up a position at an Earth-sun gravitational balance point known as L1, a million miles out in space, to watch for the sun's outbursts and keep an eye on Earth as well.

DSCOVR's history has been almost as tortuous as the spacecraft's acronym. Gore suggested the mission in 1998 as an inspirational way to capture continuous imagery of Earth's full disk from deep space. The then-vice president talked up the satellite so much that it became known unofficially as "GoreSat." (Its official name, Triana, paid tribute to Rodrigo de Triana — the sailor who is said to have been the first to spot America during Christopher Columbus' famous voyage in 1492.)

The Bush administration mothballed the $100 million-plus Triana satellite in 2001, but the mission was revived in 2009 as part of the U.S. early warning system for potentially damaging space weather. DSCOVR is now a joint project involving NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as well as the Air Force.

DSCOVR is equipped with an instrument known as the Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera, or EPIC, which will take multispectral pictures of Earth's disk continually, if not continuously. Another instrument called the National Institute of Standards and Technology Advanced Radiometer, or NISTAR, will measure the radiation coming off Earth's surface. Those instruments should help scientists get a better fix on our planet's energy budget — and lead to the development of better climate prediction models.

FULL STORY