This is the second time in one week that NASA will be postponing the launch of the United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket due to bad weather, strong wind, and now, technical problems with the booster insulation.
The launch was supposed to take place around 6:20 a.m. Friday; but it’s now been postponed about 6:20 a.m. Saturday – after it was initially postponed from Thursday morning.
The United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket will be launched from the Vandenberg Air Force Base near Lompoc on a spatial mission to gather water that will help forecast weather, track drought, and monitor climate change.
According to Jared Entin, NASA’s Washington-based project scientist for the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission, the 2,000-pound aircraft, once fully deployed, will aim two microwave-emitting instruments at Earth’s surface and collect data that will enable the agency to determine the moisture content of the top 2 inches of soil planet-wide, and to calculate water depth to about 3 feet.
NASA scientists say the radiometer and the radar will work together to pick up subtle changes in a narrow spectrum of microwave radiation known as the L-band, as the microwaves scatter and reflect from Earth’s surface. “What we’re measuring is the dip in the energy coming back from Earth in this spectrum,” Entin said. “The more the dip, the more water is blocking the signal.”
From an altitude of about 426 miles, the satellite will be able to sweep all of Earth’s surface, regardless of cloud cover, in two to three days, offering a resolution of about 5 or 6 miles.
It might really take more than a year to gather, calibrate, verify and analyze the information in a way that is suitable for scientific research, NASA plans to release early data sets within several months to forecasters and planners in such agencies as the United Nations World Food Program, U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Eventually, such information will help predict floods, drought, famine, crop yields, weather and climate change. “This water in the soil is a cog between three important cycles in the Earth system – the water cycle, the carbon cycle and the energy cycle,” Entin said.
Costing $916 million, the satellite mission is designed to work for a minimum of five years, but then, NASA mission satellites are known to last for much longer. “If the satellite works on Day 1, odds are it will work for a decade or longer,” said Entin.