NASA's PACE satellite launch is a success!
After a few weather-related delays, NASA's PACE spacecraft launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station's Space Launch Complex 40 at 1:33 a.m. EST Thursday, February 8! Congratulations to all, including our GESTAR II scientists, who were involved with this mission and who will utilize the data conveyed for their research!
Learn more here on X, about the coverage and interviews with climate scientists and oceanographers.
You can view the launch and learn more about the mission here on YouTube: "SpaceX Falcon 9 Launches NASA's PACE-Payload."
Be sure to keep up with the PACE spacecraft mission on the PACE mission blog!
(PACE image credit: NASA)
To quote Dr. Dalia Kirschbaum, Director of the Earth Sciences Division at NASA GSSFC, "This represents an impressive culmination of 21 years of vision, hard work, and dedication from a multi-disciplinary team across Goddard and HQ, our domestic and international partners, and the SpaceX and Kennedy launch teams." Among those team members are researchers at UMBC and Morgan State. A key part of the spacecraft is the Ocean Color Instrument (OCI) and the two polarimeters, Spectro-polarimeter for Planetary Exploration (SPEXone) and Hyper Angular Rainbow Polarimeter #2 (HARP2); the latter was built at UMBC's Earth and Space Institute. Learn more about these instruments in this visualization by the NASA GSFC Scientific Visualization Studio: "PACE orbit with swaths and instrument fields of view."
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Posted: February 8, 2024, 10:35 AM
