U.S. Air Force Deferral of Last DMSP Upends Plan for Launching ICESat 2

摘要

A U.S. Air Force decision to defer, until 2020, the launch of an aging weather satellite has scuttled NASA plans to fly a high-priority climate change research satellite as a co-passenger, according to a senior NASA official. NASA had hoped to launch the Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite 2 (ICESat 2) in 2016 together with the Air Force's Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) F20 aboard an Atlas 5 rocket. But that tentative arrangement fell through in March when the Air Force opted to push back the DMSP mission, said Michael Freilich, NASA's Earth science director.