and, for NASA, its third spacecraft in as many days to be sent aloft.The Orbital Sciences Corp. Taurus rocket lifted off at 2:13 a.m. Eastern Standard Time Tuesday, said Diane Ainsworth, a spokeswoman for NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
The rockets primary payload was the Korean Multi-purpose Satellite (Kompsat), a TRW Inc.-built spacecraft sponsored by the decade-old Korea Aerospace Research Institute.
The 1,112-pound (500-kilogram) satellite carries an electro-optical camera, an ocean-color-imaging camera, an ionosphere measurement sensor and a high-energy particle detector. Its three-year mission will include efforts to map Korea, monitor the ocean's color and conduct space physics experiments.
The Taurus also carries NASAs new Active Cavity Radiometer Irradiance Monitor satellite (Acrimsat). It is the third and latest edition in a 19-year series of satellites to measure the total energy that comes from the light of the sun.
"Its key to the science community to maintain this database and not have a break," said Ron Zenone, Acrimsats project manager at JPL.
Both satellites successfully separated from the launch within minutes of liftoff, Ainsworth said.
The 253-pound (114-kilogram) Acrim satellite will measure changes in the suns radiance over the next five years.
Even a minute change in the amount of solar energy that reaches Earth is thought to have a large impact on global climates. A drop as small as one-quarter of 1 percent in the total solar irradiance possibly led to the period known as the Maunder Minimum. The so-called "Little Ice Age" lasted from about 1645 to 1715, when global temperatures were 3 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) cooler than todays average.
Some scientists have suggested the cooling was due to lowered solar radiation.
Conversely, a rise in irradiance levels may also play a corresponding role in global warming, perhaps contributing to 25 percent of the rise in temperatures during this century.
The rocket also carried a decidedly non-scientific payload -- portions of the cremated remains of 36 people from the United States, Japan, China and other countries.
"The human desire to spread into space is common in all cultures," said Chan Tysor, president of Houston-based Celestis, Inc. The company contracted with Orbital Sciences to piggyback a 2-pound (0.9-kilogram) canister containing the capsules of ashes into orbit.
The Kompsat and Acrimsat payload, as well as the ash-containing canister, which is bolted to the final stage launch motor, will settle into polar orbits about 420 miles (685 kilometers) above Earth. A Celestis spokesman said the ashes could remain in orbit anywhere from 100 to 1,000 years before reentering and burning up in the atmosphere.
For NASA, this was the third successful launch of one of their spacecraft in three days.
On Saturday, the Terra climate-measuring satellite was launched from Vandenberg; on Sunday, the shuttle Discovery blasted off from Cape Canaveral on a mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.
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