NASA held a media briefing at 11 a.m. PDT (2 p.m. EDT) Thursday, June 12, at NASA Headquarters in Washington about the upcoming Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 mission.
OCO-2, NASA's first spacecraft dedicated to studying carbon dioxide, is set for a July 1 launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Its mission is to measure the global distribution of carbon dioxide, the leading human-produced greenhouse gas driving changes in Earth's climate. OCO-2 replaces a nearly identical spacecraft lost in a rocket launch mishap in February 2009.
The briefing participants are:
-- Betsy Edwards, OCO-2 program executive with the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington
-- Ralph Basilio, OCO-2 project manager with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California
-- Mike Gunson, OCO-2 project scientist at JPL
-- Annmarie Eldering, OCO-2 deputy project scientist at JPL