CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- A pair of NASA science research satellites were successfully blasted into space riding atop a Boeing Delta 2 rocket launched Sunday from the California coast.
The $298 million mission lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base's Space Launch Complex 2W at 7:45 p.m. EST (0045 GMT Monday).
Launch was delayed one day because of a problem with ground support equipment at the pad.
Inside the 13-story rocket's nose cone were ICESat (Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite) and CHIPSat (Cosmic Hot Interstellar Plasma Spectrometer), a spacecraft duo in which ICESat was the primary cargo and CHIPSat -- a smaller University Explorer Class probe -- was basically along for the ride.
Climbing through a low deck of clouds, the rocket pitched over on a southerly path that aimed both missions toward polar orbit.
A Vandenberg tracking camera sent clear views of the rocket and its three solid rocket boosters separating from the first stage almost two minutes after launch.
Precisely 84 minutes after launch the ICESat spacecraft separated from the Delta 2's second stage and attached payload container still holding CHIPSat. Nineteen minutes later CHIPSat separated, bringing the launch phase of the mission to a successful conclusion.
"Every thing is working beautifully. We're very happy," said Ghassem Asrar, NASA's associate administrator for the agency's Earth Science Enterprise.The launch was the first for the U.S. space program in 2003.
Cold clues
ICESat is a NASA Earth Science Enterprise spacecraft whose key purpose is contributing to understanding the impacts of global climate change.
"There's been a lot of hard work that has gone into this. This is the realization of a dream and a concept that started about 25 years," said Waleed Abdalati, ICESat Program Scientist NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Specifically, as ICESat's name suggests, the satellite will look at the ice sheets that blanket the Earth's poles and measure their elevations with an eye toward logging how those elevations change during ICESat's planned three-year mission.
Data will be obtained by the satellite's sole instrument -- the Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS). Rapid pulses of laser light will be beamed down on the icy surface and reflected back to the satellite like a radar.
By using the Global Positioning System to precisely determine where ICESat is at it fires its laser toward Earth, scientists will be able to measure the topography of the ice sheets.
"It's that third dimension that's critical," Abdalati said.
Scientists have long been able to measure the length and width of the planet's glaciers and ice sheets, but it's the thickness of those frozen masses of water that is the key variable.
The overall size of the ice contributes directly to the sea level, which has been rising some two millimeters per year, Abdalati said.
Many view the theory of global warming as the cause for the ice melting and the sea level rising, but Abdalati warned that's not necessarily an accurate assessment. Warmer conditions often cause increased precipitation over the ice sheets, which cause them to thicken and reduce sea level.
"There are tradeoffs that we just don't have yet quantified," he said. "We need this view from space to give us this sampling. Why is the ice growing in some places and shrinking in others? We don't know."
Assembled at Ball Aerospace in Boulder, Colorado, ICESat will be controlled on-orbit by the University of Colorado in Boulder.
Interstellar via Internet
Meanwhile, the CHIPSat mission is designed to study the formation of stars, and will have a life span of about a year.
The spacecraft will "study the very hot interstellar plasma that's believed to exist within roughly 100 light-years of the solar system," says Mark Hurwitz, principal investigator for CHIPSat at the University of California, Berkeley. The plasma, says Hurwitz, is "probably the remnant" of one or more supernova explosions.
The suitcase-size sized CHIPSat is designed to provide information into the origin, physical processes and properties of the hot gas contained in the interstellar medium. Studying these hot gases can provide important clues about the formation and evolution of galaxies since the interstellar medium literally contains the seeds of future stars.
Just as interesting as the science is the way the mission is to be operated.
CHIPSat will be the first U.S. mission ever to use end-to-end satellite operations over the Internet.
"Broadly speaking the satellite is being treated as something like a node on the Internet," Hurwitz said.
Anyone with a properly configured computer and authorization will be able to command CHIPSat or download data from the spacecraft via the Internet.
This sophisticated, high-performance microsatellite has been designed and built by SpaceDev in Poway, Calif., under a NASA-funded contract.
"I think CHIPS will produce tremendous bang for the buck because it has been built at quite low cost," Hurwitz said.
SPACE.com Senior Space Writer Leonard David contributed to this report from Vandenberg Air Force Base.
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