NASA Launches Aura Satellite

ukcollin writes "NASA successfully launched the Aura satellite today after several previous failed attempts. The Aura satellite was launched by a 12-story Delta 2 rocket, at 6:01am (EST) from Vandenberg AFB in California. The satellite is reported to have cost in excess of $785 million dollars, and its main mission will be to study the Earth's ozone to try and determine if the ozone hole is shrinking or increasing. Although it will be focused on the stratosphere (the ozone layer), it will also be tracking pollution, climate changes, etc. by scanning and analyzing each of Earth's atmospheric levels all the way down to the troposphere."

Spaceflight Now status

[brownpau]

Also see SpaceflightNow's Live Status Report. [spaceflightnow.com]

A little irony

[Neil Blender]

The Delta 2 rocket is the third most atmospheric polluting rocket currently being used in the world (behind the Space Shuttle and Titan 4s). Every launch creates a mini hole in the ozone layer due to emissions from the solid fuel rockets spewing out hydrogen chloride and aluminum oxide.

Re:A little irony

[Xentax]

Um, not that I automatically disbelieve you or anything, but could you elaborate and/or cite some sources?

The shuttle SRBs separate pretty early in the launch process - I wouldn't think any of their exhaust would be high enough off the ground to make it to the ozone layer.

Let's not forget the scale, either -- even the shuttle pales in comparison to, say, the amount of CFCs put into the atmosphere (and I mean up where it counts) by volcanic eruptions (though I haven't done the math on amount per eruption and eruption rate vs. the amount and rate of rocket launches).

I'm not saying you're wrong, I just want some real data on how solid rockets are impacting the ozone layer, given their launch profile.

Xentax

Re:A little irony

[shiwala]

The Delta 2 rocket is the third most atmospheric polluting rocket currently being used in the world (behind the Space Shuttle and Titan 4s). Every launch creates a mini hole in the ozone layer due to emissions from the solid fuel rockets spewing out hydrogen chloride and aluminum oxide.

Interesting...I had never given that much thought until now. For anyone else who's interested, here's more info on rocket emissions [aero.org].