NASA will launch a new satellite into space Friday, with two goals in mind, according to James Gleason, NPP project scientist, “One is to get the data for the weather forecasts, environmental observations and take a whole suite of observations that continue our satellite data records which span from measuring aerosols, you know, dust particles in the atmosphere, how have they changed over the past decade?,” Gleason said. “Is the ground greener or browner over time? Has the sea surface temperature changed? Has the ozone changed? These are all data sets that we have that we have multi-decades sets of data sets and we just want to keep adding to that so we can answer the question, is the climate changing?”
The additional data will be incorporated into existing computer models, hopefully leading to increased forecast accuracy. The better the data is going in, the better the data is coming out! The satellite is set to launch at 4:48 AM CDT Friday from NASA’s Space Launch Complex-2 at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.