CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Another example of the U.S. space program turning swords into plowshares blasted off from a California launch pad Thursday on a $267 million mission to deploy a weather forecasting satellite that could potentially benefit every person on planet Earth.
An Air Force Titan 2 rocket lifts off from Vandenberg Air Force Base carrying the NOAA-L spacecraft in this view captured from NASA TV.
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The sword was in the form of an Air Force Titan 2 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), whose two stages sat on alert in two different underground silos for more than 30 years, ready to be launched on a mission to deliver nuclear bombs to the Soviet Union.
Instead, the missile was modified to serve as the space booster for NOAA-L, a new polar orbiting eye-in-the-sky weather satellite for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which was successfully sent into orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base on Thursday.
Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 4 West was at 6:22 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (10:22 GMT).Climbing out over the Pacific Ocean and flying on a path to the south, the Titan 2 rocket's twin engines appeared as two brilliant blue stars against the dark sky. Less than seven minutes later the Titan 2's two stages were empty of propellant and NOAA-L safely separated from the rocket, successfully ending the launch phase of the mission.
Watch the Titan 2 launch using SPACE.com'sMultimedia Viewer .
Moments later the Lockheed Martin-built satellite fired its own on-board rocket motor, sending the spacecraft to an orbit that will have it circling Earth once every 102 minutes, crossing the equator in sunlight at 2 p.m. local time no matter what part of the planet is rotating beneath.
NASA was responsible for managing the process of building and launching NOAA-L, as well as checking out the spacecraft once it arrived in orbit. That process is expected to take about 10 days, after which NASA will formally turn over the spacecraft to NOAA officials, who will then rename the satellite NOAA-16.
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Weather wonder
NOAA-16 was launched to replace NOAA-14, which was sent into space five years ago and has since drifted far enough out of its proper orbit that the information the older satellite gathers is no longer useful to scientists on the ground, said Mike Mignogno, NOAA's program manager for this spacecraft.
An artist's concept shows the NOAA weather satellite as it might appear circling the planet once every 100 minutes. Lockheed Martin image.
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More than just a satellite capable of taking pictures of clouds, NOAA-16 will be able to help provide meteorologists with a more global view of weather patterns, keep an eye on the amount of polar ice, track changes in the amount of soil moisture and help air-traffic controllers steer airplanes away from polluted air that can clog engine plumbing.
Officials say the data will be available freely to anyone on the ground who has the proper receiver and computer software to process the images and information.
Another feature of NOAA-16 - - the second in a series of five new Polar Operating Environmental Satellites - is that it carries an international search and rescue capability that acts as a radio relay between those that are lost and the nearest help.
"We've been operating this service for nearly 20 years, and during that time we've been credited with saving over 11,000 lives," Mignogno said.
A launch attempt on Wednesday was called off near the end of the countdown so mission managers could spend some time studying why the rocket's electronics were inadvertently exposed to more power than normal.
Although controllers were sure there was no damage to the rocket, they needed to be sure they were following proper procedures at the launch pad, said NASA spokesman Bruce Buckingham.
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