Media Advisory/Photo Opportunity – Cloudsat Launch

Note to Editors: This event is NOT open to the public. It is intended to inform journalists in advance of launch. A mult box will be available.

APRIL 11 EVENT AT COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY TO FEATURE COLORADO SCIENTISTS LEADING CLOUDSAT, $217 MILLION NASA SATELLITE SCHEDULED TO LAUNCH APRIL 21

WHAT:

An opportunity for Colorado journalists to learn about the science and the major Colorado leadership behind CloudSat, an experimental $217 million NASA satellite that will use an advanced radar to study clouds and precipitation from space. CloudSat is scheduled to launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on April 21 as part of NASA’s A-Train of earth science observation satellites.

WHEN/WHERE:

10:30-11:30 a.m., Tuesday, April 11, Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University, Fort Collins. Tours of the data processing center will be available after the science presentation.

Directions from Denver: Take I-25 north to Prospect Road exit. Take Prospect west about eight miles to Overland Trail. Take Overland north about two miles to Laporte Avenue. Take Laporte west about a mile until you see a big white sign that says CIRA, Atmospheric Science. Turn left and take the immediate next left to the big red building on the hill.

WHO:

Speakers include:

Graeme Stephens – Principal investigator/lead scientist for CloudSat and University Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State College of Engineering

Deborah Vane – Deputy principal investigator, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Randy Coffey – CloudSat spacecraft manager, Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder

Ken Eis – Deputy director, Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere, Colorado State University (CIRA will be responsible for processing the satellite data)

DETAILS:

The vertical profiles of global cloud properties provided by CloudSat will fill a critical gap in understanding how clouds affect climate and uncover new knowledge about clouds and precipitation and the connection of clouds to the large-scale motions of the atmosphere. Clouds are an important stage in Earth’s great water cycle, converting the salty water of the oceans to the fresh water over land needed to sustain life. Without clouds there would be no rains, no freshwater and no human life. Despite this importance, scientists’ ability to forecast clouds and rainfall from clouds is poor and a weak link in all weather and climate modeling.

Other partners on CloudSat include the U.S. Air Force and the Canadian Space Agency. More information about CloudSat can be found at http://cloudsat.atmos.colostate.edu.

For more information, contact Emily Narvaes Wilmsen at Colorado State at (970) 491-2336.

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