Reversing Course, NASA Moves Ahead With Glory Mission

摘要

NASA intends to finish and fly the Glory climate-monitoring satellite, reversing a decision the U.S. space agency made just six months ago to cancel the $208 million mission. Facing budget pressure, NASA Earth science officials said early this year that the agency was looking for options short of launching a dedicated satellite for putting the spacecraft's featured sensor, a greenhouse gas measuring instrument, in orbit. By the time NASA rolled out its 2006 budget request in February, the decision had been made to cancel Glory while continuing work on the spacecraft's aerosol polarimetry sensor. NASA later said it intended to add the instrument to one of the new generation of U.S. polar-orbiting weather satellites in development.