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Italian Satellite Launches Into Orbit
By The Associated Press
posted: 8 June 2007
6:31 a.m. ET
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VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE,
California (AP) -- An Italian satellite reached space on a mission to image the
Earth.
The
COSMO-SkyMed satellite, developed for the Italian Space Agency and Italian
Ministry of Defense, was boosted into orbit at 7:34 p.m. PDT Thursday (0234 GMT
Friday) after being launched aboard a Boeing rocket from the Vandenberg Air
Force Base.
The satellite, which
carries a radar imager, will be part of a constellation of four orbiting probes
that will collect data on floods, droughts, earthquakes and landslides. It is
the first to be launched, and a second was expected to lift off from Vandenberg
later this year.
Italian space officials
expect the fully functional system to beam back up to 1,800 images of the Earth
a day.
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