US: NASA launches satellite to monitor carbon dioxide
24 Feb 2009 9:15 PM
WASHINGTON, Feb 24 AFP - NASA announced early on Tuesday it had launched a rocket carrying a satellite to monitor global carbon dioxide emissions.
The satellite was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California aboard a Taurus XL rocket, live images on NASA TV showed.
The mission of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) is to map the global distribution of carbon dioxide and study how that distribution changes over time, NASA said in a statement.
It is NASA's first spacecraft dedicated to studying carbon dioxide. In January, Japan launched a satellite on a similar mission.
Carbon dioxide is the leading human-produced greenhouse gas driving climate change.
