1 00:00:00,510 --> 00:00:00,620 \h 2 00:00:01,400 --> 00:00:02,400 Music 3 00:00:05,500 --> 00:00:07,440 NARRATOR: NASA's Glory mission offers the potential to dazzle us with discoveries of our home 4 00:00:09,760 --> 00:00:10,076 planet's climate. With specialized sensors and orbiting on a path that covers all of Earth, 5 00:00:15,510 --> 00:00:16,540 the Glory satellite is to tell researchers how much of the sun's energy the planet absorbs or 6 00:00:20,680 --> 00:00:24,213 uses and how much gets reflected back out into space. 7 00:00:25,240 --> 00:00:26,283 About the size of a refrigerator, the Glory spacecraft will look for those answers in the 8 00:00:30,130 --> 00:00:30,336 form of aerosols in the Earth's atmosphere. Particles of solids and liquids that float high 9 00:00:35,990 --> 00:00:36,726 in the air, some reaching the stratosphere, are what Glory will detect and map. The sensors 10 00:00:41,320 --> 00:00:46,253 also are expected to reveal how long the particles stay in the atmosphere. 11 00:00:46,360 --> 00:00:52,093 NGUYEN: Glory will fly two instruments that will help us understand, first of all, the 12 00:00:52,860 --> 00:00:54,070 aerosols interaction between the Earth's atmosphere and then the second instrument, called 13 00:00:57,650 --> 00:00:57,756 TIM, Total Irradiance Monitor, will help us understand the sun's interaction with our upper 14 00:01:03,610 --> 00:01:04,610 atmosphere. 15 00:01:06,870 --> 00:01:08,043 NARRATOR: The answers are expected to be a key piece of the puzzle to figuring out the 16 00:01:11,430 --> 00:01:14,830 world's prospects for climate change in the future. 17 00:01:14,920 --> 00:01:15,976 BAEZ: What they're trying to do is define the size of it, where it resides, what are its 18 00:01:19,730 --> 00:01:21,076 peculiarities, is it something that man is doing, is it something that the Earth does 19 00:01:24,050 --> 00:01:29,916 naturally, is it something that the sun interacts and causes, umm, those kind of things. 20 00:01:30,370 --> 00:01:31,273 NARRATOR: Glory also marks the return to flight for the Taurus XL rocket, a relatively small 21 00:01:35,600 --> 00:01:36,106 booster NASA would like to use to launch future satellites, too. 22 00:01:39,360 --> 00:01:39,613 Based on existing launchers, Orbital Sciences designed the Taurus XL to meet the needs of 23 00:01:45,040 --> 00:01:45,183 small satellites heading into Earth orbit. It has four stages and burns a solid fuel similar 24 00:01:51,030 --> 00:01:51,986 to the propellants used by the space shuttle's solid rocket boosters. The Stage Zero of the 25 00:01:56,140 --> 00:01:56,403 Taurus XL traces its heritage back to the Peacekeeper missile. The other three stages are 26 00:02:01,810 --> 00:02:06,943 taken from the design of the Pegasus booster, but without the signature wing. 27 00:02:07,010 --> 00:02:13,010 BAEZ: The vehicle is very similar to the Pegasus XL vehicle, minus the stage zero, and the 28 00:02:13,660 --> 00:02:15,793 first stage doesn't have a wing. 29 00:02:16,470 --> 00:02:22,603 NARRATOR: A Taurus XL was launched in February 2009 to lift the Orbiting Carbon Observatory, 30 00:02:22,610 --> 00:02:24,340 but the payload fairing protecting the spacecraft during the first part of the launch did not 31 00:02:27,080 --> 00:02:31,546 separate as it was supposed to. The spacecraft did not reach orbit. 32 00:02:31,970 --> 00:02:37,970 BAEZ: Glory's going to do some fantastic stuff as far as mapping out, umm, aerosols in the 33 00:02:38,670 --> 00:02:39,170 atmosphere. It's also a groundbreaker in that this is the first flight after a failure of the 34 00:02:44,370 --> 00:02:50,570 Taurus XL vehicle and so we're excited to be doing this. Glory just happens to be the science 35 00:02:52,110 --> 00:02:54,710 that we're taking up with us this time. 36 00:02:55,920 --> 00:02:57,176 NARRATOR: When the Orbiting Carbon Observatory mission did not achieve orbit, the launch 37 00:03:00,530 --> 00:03:03,040 teams set out to determine what happened, a task made more difficult by the fact that they 38 00:03:04,020 --> 00:03:04,443 did not have the failed pieces to examine. Instead, they had to use the extensive data or 39 00:03:09,530 --> 00:03:10,733 telemetry they received during the climb into space along with extensive fault trees to best 40 00:03:14,460 --> 00:03:20,526 figure out the likely cause. The redesign work, from finding a probable cause to fixing it, 41 00:03:20,730 --> 00:03:21,863 has been intense. 42 00:03:22,330 --> 00:03:23,236 NASA's Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, operates launches 43 00:03:27,490 --> 00:03:28,423 from several parts of the world so spacecraft can go into different kinds of orbits. This 44 00:03:32,490 --> 00:03:38,623 time, Glory required what's called a polar, or sun-synchronous, orbit to fulfill its studies 45 00:03:38,660 --> 00:03:40,126 of Earth's atmosphere. 46 00:03:40,330 --> 00:03:41,983 Reaching that orbit means using the Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., launch site on the 47 00:03:44,610 --> 00:03:45,610 West Coast. 48 00:03:46,610 --> 00:03:52,476 NGUYEN: Glory was designed to join what's called the A-train or afternoon train of Earth 49 00:03:52,940 --> 00:03:58,873 observing satellites. It is necessary to launch from Vandenberg to be able to go into the 50 00:03:59,860 --> 00:04:01,050 sun-synchronous orbit. That orbit cannot be achieved efficiently by launching out of the east 51 00:04:04,870 --> 00:04:06,136 coast, for example. 52 00:04:06,490 --> 00:04:08,383 NARRATOR: The Glory spacecraft is to become the fifth satellite of the eight planned to make 53 00:04:10,730 --> 00:04:11,603 up the "A-train" constellation. Taking readings at the same time on different aspects of the 54 00:04:15,990 --> 00:04:16,610 atmosphere, Glory's observations are expected to add more information to the growing database 55 00:04:21,570 --> 00:04:27,503 of knowledge about our own planet and how it is affected by the sun and other influences.