The Earth Cloud Aerosol and Radiation Explorer, or EarthCARE, which is expected to blast off at about 6:20 p.m. EDT will examine clouds and aerosols in the atmosphere in an effort to “revolutionize our understanding” of how they impact Earth’s climate, according to the ESA.
“It was an emotional moment for those of us here in Vandenberg who were able to bid farewell to our precious satellite while we watched it being encapsulated within the two halves of the rocket fairing, as it will never be ‘seen’ again by human eyes,” said Dirk Bernaerts, EarthCARE’s project manager.
“Of course, our real goodbyes will come when we see EarthCARE take to the skies.”
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EarthCARE has taken the long road to get to space. The satellite was supposed to leave on a Russian Soyuz rocket and signed a deal with Arianespace in 2019 to make that happen. ESA shifted gears after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
ESA hoped that the EarthCARE satellite could launch on a European Vega-C rocket but a static fire test paused those plans until at least late 2024. That led ESA to cross the Atlantic Ocean with new plans to allow SpaceX to send the satellite into space on one of its Falcon 9 rockets.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency gave the ESA its Cloud Profiling Radar instrument to be added to EarthCARE along with data processing for it while orbiting the planet. The CPR and the ESA’s Atmospheric Lidar will be the two active instruments on the satellite.
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- War in Ukraine
