Posted: Mon, Jun 24, 2002, 8:05 PM ET (0005 GMT)
A Titan 2 booster successfully launched a weather satellite Monday afternoon. The Titan 2 lifted off from Space Launch Complex 4 at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, on schedule at 2:23 pm EDT (1823 GMT). The booster placed the NOAA-M weather satellite into an 830-kilometer sun-synchronous polar orbit. NOAA-M, to be renamed NOAA-17 in the near future, is the third of five Polar Orbiting
Environmental Satellites (POES) that will provide weather data from polar orbits over the next 10 years, complementing data provided by the GOES series of satellites in geosynchronous orbit. Monday's flight was the eleventh launch from a group of Titan 2 boosters that have been converted from ICBMs to launch vehicles, and the first since September 2000. Two remaining Titan 2 boosters are scheduled for launch late this year and in early 2003.
