August 13, 2014
The Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 has now taken it’s place at the head of the “A-Train” constellation of Earth-observing satellites that have been designed to cross the equator at 1:36 pm local time. All systems are working as expected and NASA scientists are thrilled with the quality of these first spectra. While there is still a lot of work to properly calibrate these data and sensors, we have a working system!
The NASA Jet Propulsion Lab has a very nice description of the A-Train constellation at their OCO-2 Observatory page. If for no other reason, take a look at the wonderful artistic rendering of the “train”.
View the full NASA announcement at: