NASA's New Climate and Weather Satellite Launches

By Nancy Atkinson - October 28, 2011 at 11:43 AM UTC | Planetary Science

The National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project, or NPP, launched successfully on a Delta 2 rocket early today at at 5:48 a.m. EDT 09:48 GMT (or precisely at 2:48:01.828 a.m. PDT, according to NASA's Twitter feed). The next generation satellite will measure both global climate changes and key weather variables, as well as test new technologies for future Earth observing satellites.

The spacecraft has also successfully separated and is now in orbit. The separation video is below.

For more information about NPP, see the

NPP website

, or read

our mission preview article.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com