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Delayed SAGE III Looks to Make it to Moscow ... Finally!
By Anatoly Zak
Special to SPACE.com
posted: 05:08 pm ET
17 October 2001
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sage_launch_011017 Following another delay due to the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, the Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment or SAGE III instrument is scheduled to fly to Moscow on Monday. The American SAGE III, designed to study the Earth's atmosphere, will be part of the payload of the Russian Meteor-3 satellite set to launch on November 21. The launch of the Meteor-3 spacecraft was originally set for December 2000, however it was delayed due to technical problems, first on the Meteor 3 satellite itself and later on the SAGE III. The SAGE III will conduct accurate long-term measurements of the vertical structure of aerosols, ozone, water vapor, and other important gases in the upper troposphere and stratosphere. These measurements will provide insight into the process leading to the depletion of the ozone layer. The original SAGE III instrument arrived to Russia at the beginning of 2001 for the integration with the satellite; however, it was shipped back to the United States in March when anomalies showed up during testing. Specialists at NASA's Langley Research Center, in Langley, VA, were completing the preparation of the backup SAGE III for shipment to Russia when the terrorist acts of September 11 took place. According to Al Moore, the SAGE III project manager at Langley, SAGE III is expected to arrive to Baikonur via Moscow by the end of this week. The grounding international flights in the wake of the terrorist attacks. Moore said that despite the shipment delay, the Meteor-3 launch date set for November 21 would not slip. The Ukrainian-built Zenit-2 rocket is expected to launch Meteor-3 satellite into the so-called Sun-synchronous orbit, which will allow round-the-clock monitoring of the Earth atmosphere in the daylight.
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