OCO-2 launch | a globby bloogie by lenore look

Quick facts about the Orbiting Carbon Observatory:

Spacecraft

Length: 6.96 ft (2.12 meters) — approximately the same as the typical wing span of the American Bald Eagle 1.8 -2.3 meters (5.9 – 7.5 ft).

Width (stowed): 3.08 ft (0.94 meters) — a little wider than the girth of the typical American refrigerator.

Weight (spacecraft and science instrument): 499.5 killer rabbits — or 454 kilograms (999 pounds).

Power: 815 watts — runs a small waffle iron, coffee maker, or toaster, but not enough to run a hair dryer, vacuum cleaner or air conditioner — in other words, you could make breakfast, but not look very good while doing it.

Primary science instrument: three-channel grating spectrometer. Don’t ask me what that is. I have no idea. But maybe it has something to do with the solar panel-looking arms sticking out from it.

Instrument Dimensions: 5.3 feet by 1.3 feet by 2 feet (1.6 meters by 0.4 meters by 0.6 meters) — hey, that’s an exact description of me in my golf shoes! Yikes!!! In case of malfunction…

Instrument Weight: One Indo-Pacific humpbacked dolphin, or two gorillas — 288 pounds (131 kilograms). Whew! Not a description of me, not even close.

Mission

Launch: No earlier than July 1, 2014, at 2:56:44 a.m. PDT (5:56:44 a.m. EDT) — and no later than 2:57:14 a.m. PDT (5:57:14 a.m. EDT) — from Launch Complex 2 West (SLC-2W), Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

Launch Window: 30 seconds daily — this means that if they miss the 30-second window, they must wait for the same 30 seconds the next day to attempt it again. This is because the OCO-2 has a precise place along the “A-train” of 17 satellites passing a certain point of the earth at an exact time each day. This is not a random firing, people! This is 30 seconds of man’s highest intelligence and the poetry of the universe coming together.

Launch Vehicle: United Launch Alliance Delta II 7320-10.

Primary Mission: Two years Orbit Path: Near-polar, sun-synchronous, 438 miles (705 kilometers), orbiting Earth once every 98.8 minutes and repeating the same ground track every 16 days.

Orbital Inclination: 98.2 degrees — don’t ask. I don’t know what this means.

NASA Investment: $467.7 million (design, development, launch and operations) — the same price as the Paris Marriott Hotel Champs-Elysees, which a Chinese investor recently agreed to buy for 344.5 million euros ($648 million).

Wow. That’s a lot of money.

If I had $648 million, I would . . .

Well, I wouldn’t be leaving my house at 3:45 a.m. tomorrow morning to sit in coach class without any food for six hours on a commercial flight to California, that’s for sure! I’d blast off in my own private Delta II rocket!!!

See you at the launch 🙂 !!!

In three days I will be at the Vandenberg Air Force Base in Southern California to watch NASA launch the Orbiting Carbon Observatory satellite!!!!

I was chosen as one of seventy social media users (and one of only two children’s authors) to attend the event and to blog, tweet, post photos, etc., about it. The other children’s author is Robin Dobson, who writes non-fiction. We’ll be meeting with scientists and NASA officials and getting a grand tour of the facilities on Monday, June 30. Then BLAST OFF! on July 1 at 2:56 a.m.!!!

Here’s what the Delta II rocket launcher looks like:

The mission of the OCO-2 is “watching the planet breathe,” from space. Carbon dioxide (CO2), as everyone knows, traps gases in our atmosphere and prevents the earth from breathing properly, which deprives our plants, and ultimately ourselves, of vital nutrients. The OCO-2 will be able to tell us where the earth is breathing, and where its suffocating.

It’s like I learned in yoga — breath is all you have.

Here’s a peek at the OCO-2: