Welcome to DSCOVR’s Launch Day!
Good evening from Florida! We are making the third launch attempt today for the DSCOVR spacecraft, an observatory that will serve the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Launch time this evening is 6:03 p.m. EST and the launch window is instantaneous. All conditions are go right now and the weather forecast calls for a 90 percent chance of continued acceptable conditions. The upper level winds that caused a scrub of Tuesday’s attempt are now “go” as well.
DSCOVR also carries two NASA instruments that will be used in the agency’s ongoing work to study changes on our home planet. The spacecraft is destined for an orbit about a million miles from Earth called L1. At that position, the Earth’s gravity balances against the sun’s gravity and an object can remain in a steady orbit.
