The televised launch of a NASA mission involving University of Colorado at Boulder faculty, staff and students to probe mysterious clouds, possibly tied to climate change, will be presented Wednesday, April 25, at 1:30 p.m. on the east campus.
The program is being hosted by CU-Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, which built two of the three instruments for the Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere mission, or AIM. LASP will control the NASA spacecraft from campus.
The event will be at LASP's Space Technology Building, 1234 Innovation Drive, at the CU Research Park east of 30th Street on Colorado Avenue. The program will feature faculty, staff and students involved in the mission.
AIM scientists will study the silvery-blue noctilucent clouds that form at high latitudes about 50 miles above Earth's polar regions each year and are believed associated with increases in greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere. The spacecraft will be launched from a Pegasus expendable-launch vehicle. It will be carried to an altitude of 40,000 feet by a jet aircraft over the Pacific Ocean and then climb into polar orbit about 370 miles above Earth.
The NASA TV coverage at LASP begins at 1 p.m. and the jet is slated for take-off at 1:30 p.m. The jet is expected to maneuver into position for the payload drop at 2 p.m., according to NASA officials. More information about the mission is available at .
For media updates on the LASP event go to the Web site at: lasp.colorado.edu. For further information contact Emily CoBabe Ammann at LASP at (303) 735-5814 or Jim Scott in the CU-Boulder News Services Office at (303) 492-3114.