NASAs Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration satellite, the worlds first dedicated space weather observatory, lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California on Saturday, soaring into orbit atop a Delta 2 rocket.
The IMAGE satellite launched from NASAs seaside Space Launch Complex 2 at 3:34 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (20:34 GMT) at the opening of an eight-minute window.
"We have liftoff of NASA's IMAGE spacecraft, placing in orbit new eyes to study the solar wind," said NASA launch commentator Bruce Buckingham.
About 56 minutes after launch, Buckingham added that the spacecraft had successfully separated from the 12-story Boeing rocket, while high over the Indian Ocean.
NASA bills the satellite as the first to image the Earths magnetosphere, the area of space surrounding the planet where its magnetic field holds sway.
The spacecraft and its six instruments will spend the next two years on a $154 million mission to image the otherwise invisible plasma cloud of charged particles within the magnetosphere, capturing it for the first time in its entirety. Previously, satellites have made only spot measurements of the magnetosphere, a 1 trillion-cubic-mile (2.56-cubic-kilometer) region of space that envelopes Earth.
Snapping images at intervals as short as two minutes, IMAGE will also show scientists in near real time how the magnetosphere reacts to the buffeting gusts of the solar wind, as well as its response to magnetic storms that can rage for several days.
Scientists crow the satellite, by studying the densities, energies and masses of charged particles throughout the inner magnetosphere in three dimensions, will afford a view on a system similar to that opened up by the first geosynchronous weather satellites a generation ago.
IMAGEs look at space weather will give scientists the a better understanding of how it might affect power grids, orbiting satellites and astronauts working in space. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will incorporate IMAGE data into regular space weather forecasts it already makes.
The IMAGE satellite weighs 1,089 pounds (494 kilograms) and stands 5 feet (1.52 meters) tall. Although the octagonal satellite is squat, it will crank out several beryllium-copper antennas in orbit that will extend a whopping 1,652 feet (502 meters) into space after it reaches orbit.
The antennas will make IMAGE the longest artificial object in space.
The spacecraft, the first under NASAs MIDEX, or Medium-class Explorer program, was built by Lockheed Martin Missiles & Space in Sunnyvale, California.
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