NASA to fight global warming from space


The $US468 million ($506 million) mission is designed to study the main driver of climate change emitted from smokestacks and tailpipes.


NASA suffered a major scientific – and financial – disaster in 2009 when a rocket carrying the original satellite plunged into the waters off Antarctica minutes after soaring from Vandenberg Air Force Base along the central California coast.

After the loss, engineers went back to the drawing board and built a near-identical twin that is set to launch tomorrw.



Climate change scientists welcomed the latest flight attempt.




"It's really the fate of carbon dioxide once it's in the atmosphere that we're trying to really put our finger on," project scientist Michael Gunson, of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said during a recent pre-launch news conference.


About half ends up trapped in Earth's atmosphere, while a quarter is absorbed into the ocean. Another quarter is sucked up by trees and plants.



The new mission costs almost twice as much as the original, mainly because it will ride on a more expensive rocket. Engineers had to swap out obsolete parts, adding to the mission price tag.

Once in polar orbit 705 kilometres high, the satellite will circle Earth every 100 minutes, measuring carbon dioxide levels. It will join a constellation of 17 other NASA spacecraft that stare down at the planet.