Aura Spacecraft Launched to Better Understand the Air We Breathe
July 15, 2004
Aura, a mission dedicated to the health of Earth's
atmosphere, successfully launched today at 3:01:59 a.m.
Pacific Time from the Western Range of Vandenberg Air Force
Base, Calif., aboard a Boeing Delta II rocket. Spacecraft
separation occurred at 4:06 a.m. Pacific Time, inserting
Aura into a 705-kilometer (438-mile) orbit.
NASA's latest Earth-observing satellite, Aura will help us
understand and protect the air we breathe.
"This moment marks a tremendous achievement for the NASA
family and our international partners," said NASA Associate
Administrator for Earth Science Dr. Ghassem Asrar. "We look
forward to the Aura satellite offering us historic insight
into the tough issues of global air quality, ozone recovery
and climate change.
"This mission advances NASA's exploration of Earth and will
also better our understanding of our neighbors in the
planetary system," he added. "Aura joins its siblings,
Terra, Aqua and 10 more research satellites developed and
launched by NASA during the past decade, to study our home
planet, Earth."
"Many people have worked very hard to reach this point and
the entire team is very excited," said Aura Project Manager
Rick Pickering of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center,
Greenbelt, Md.
With the launch of Aura, the first series of NASA's Earth
Observing System satellites is complete. The other
satellites are Terra, which monitors land, and Aqua, which
observes Earth's water cycle.
Aura will help answer three key scientific questions: Is the
Earth's protective ozone layer recovering? What are the
processes controlling air quality? How is the Earth's
climate changing? NASA expects early scientific data from
Aura within 30-90 days.
Aura will also help scientists understand how the
composition of the atmosphere affects and responds to
Earth's changing climate. The results from this mission will
help scientists better understand the processes that connect
local and global air quality.
Each of Aura's four instruments is designed to survey
different aspects of Earth's atmosphere. Aura will survey
the atmosphere from the troposphere, where mankind lives,
through the stratosphere, where the ozone layer resides and
protects life on Earth.
Aura's four instruments are: the High Resolution Dynamics
Limb Sounder (HIRDLS); the Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS); the
Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI); and the Tropospheric
Emission Spectrometer (TES). NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., developed and manages MLS and
TES. HIRDLS was built by the United Kingdom and the United
States. OMI was built by the Netherlands and Finland in
collaboration with NASA. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
manages the Aura mission.
The Microwave Limb Sounder is intended to improve our
understanding of ozone in Earth's stratosphere, which is
vital in protecting us from solar ultraviolet radiation.
The Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer is an infrared sensor
designed to study Earth's troposphere and to look at ozone
and other urban pollutants.
NASA's Earth Science Enterprise is dedicated to
understanding the Earth as an integrated system and applying
Earth System Science to improve prediction of climate,
weather and natural hazards using the unique vantage point
of space.
For Aura information and images on the Internet, visit:
http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/2004/0517aura.html and
http://www.nasa.gov/aura.
For more information about MLS on the Internet, visit:
http://mls.jpl.nasa.gov/.
For more information about TES on the Internet, visit:
http://tes.jpl.nasa.gov/.
The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages
JPL for NASA.
Media contacts:
Alan Buis 818/653-8339
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Lynn Chandler 301/286-2806
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Gretchen Cook-Anderson 202/358-0836
Headquarters, Washington
2004-181
