Launched in February, but not much media. Now it is coming online NOAA satellite sends back view of planet Earth | Spaceflight Now It is at Lagrange L1 From there looks at the sun in several ways, and also at the earth. Both could arguably be called 'climate' so no problem there. Back story is that in the day it was called 'Gore sat' and spent many years on the shelf. So we will have more information on solar fluxes, and much more on 'radiance' of the earth including pretty far into the infrared. Lost a decade of earth irradiance, too bad. I would be happy to have called it 'Inhofe sat' if that could have gotten it up sooner. Or hoax buster. Or whatever. JUST GO TAKE A LOOK! Enough spectral 'horsepower' to measure CO2, aerosols, and other things in the atmosphere. But it is much further away than the OCO satellite, so the latter is actually better suited. Most people seem to care more about pretty pictures of the earth, it makes those too, so for that at least it gets some love. Just in time for the upcoming solar collapse though, eh? Would not want to miss that.
I think their %loss will go down with time. Has for everyone in the business. Heavy Falcon test delayed. Our friend Elon really does not want that one to disassemble during ascent.
Is the "ownership" of this Lagrange point first come, first serve? There's not a whole lot of Lagrange points to go around, so I wonder about the international politics of those points. I know the Webb telescope is getting one of the other Lagrange points.
If you want to hold station at any Lagrangian, you need yo bring enough fuel to 'orbit' it. Not really an orbit, kinda Lissajous, I can't explain it better, I think it is pretty 'roomy' along the lines of equatorial geostationary orbits. So far, not a lot of objects are in any of the 4 Lagrangian points, but yeah, in a few centuries, it might become an issue. Kepler is at L2 (earthshade) and JWST will go there too. It is best for 'exo' and good for earth obs if night is your thing. L3 and L4 lead and lag earth in solar orbit. Nothing parked in those AFAIK.
They aren't really a 'point' but an area. I suspect those capable of sending satellites to those areas might have a clue about how not to 'bump uglies.' Bob Wilson
