A Tapestry of Tales: 10th Anniversary Reflections from NASA’s OCO-2 Mission

When woven together, the tapestry of experiences of staff and scientists provide the complete picture of OCO-2.

Breathe in… Breathe out.

This simple rhythm sets the foundation of life on Earth – and it’s a pattern that a NASA satellite has been watching from space for over a decade.

On July 2, 2024, NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) celebrated 10 years since its launch. Built by NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory (NASA/JPL), OCO-2 is now viewed as the gold standard for carbon dioxide (CO₂) measurements from space and has quietly become a powerful driver of technological, ecological and even economic progress – including providing unexpected insights into plant health, crop-yield forecasting, drought early warning systems, and forest and rangeland management. 

While the mission can point to many scientific achievements – some of which will be highlighted in the pages that follow – these accomplishments have occurred in the context of a larger human story. Scientists from around the world have come together to bring the important data from this satellite to the broader community, making OCO-2 the success that it is today.

This article provides readers an introduction to several transformative characters in this carbon story. The text peers behind the scenes to reveal the circuitous path that scientists and engineers must navigate to take a brilliant scientific concept and turn it into flight hardware that can be launched into space to make beneficial observations. The article depicts milestones that mark the mission’s successes, but also the failures, dead ends, long nights, and discouragements that make up the complexity of any science story.

2003: The First OCO Science Team Meeting

Measuring CO₂ from space: Great idea but can it really be done?

When the idea for OCO was first proposed, it wasn’t universally embraced. At the time, more than a few experts scoffed at the idea that CO₂ could be measured from space. Unlike nitrogen and oxygen, which are the dominant components of Earth’s atmosphere, CO₂ is a trace gas, often no more than a few hundred parts per million. Miniscule, elusive, and nomadic, these measurements, though challenging, are crucial because of the important role CO₂ plays in global climate.

In April 2003, a handful of hopeful scientists gathered at the California Institute for Technology (Caltech) for the first OCO Science Team meeting. To mark the occasion, they took a break during the meetings and lined up for a group photo – see Photo 1. Upon returning to work, they took up the arduous task of determining how to measure CO₂ from space with a satellite and instrument hardware that simply did not exist.

OCO-2 was developed as part of NASA’s Earth System Science Pathfinder program, which supports small, low-cost missions that can still provide tremendous value for high-impact goals. The satellite carries a high-resolution spectrometer that collects data in three, narrow spectral bands. These spectral bands follow a divide and conquer strategy – two measure the clear “fingerprint” that CO₂ leaves when it absorbs sunlight, and one takes the same measurement for oxygen (O₂). The satellite is able to estimate CO₂ concentrations by comparing the CO₂ and O₂ measurements.

Photo 1. A photo of participants during the original OCO Science Team meeting in 2003 at the California Institute of Technology.

Photo credit: NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory OCO-2

2014: A Night at Vandenberg Air Force Base – To Launch or Not to Launch

A Mother and daughter await the midnight launch.

On a warm July evening in 2014, Vivienne Payne [JPL—current OCO-2 Project Scientist] would normally have tucked her four-year-old daughter into bed. But this night was special. They were lined up in a crowd waiting for a bus to take them to Vandenberg Air Force Base (now Space Force Base) in California. The group huddled in the chill night air awaiting the launch of the OCO satellite into the cosmos.

Shortly after midnight, hundreds of guests spread blankets across the gravelly ground to make their wait more comfortable. The air was charged with excitement. The participants waited quietly, murmuring to one another while the soft slosh of the Pacific Ocean offered a steady pendulum counting down to the impending launch. Like most people there that night, Vivienne felt upbeat and excited, but she also understood the gravity of the moment – a lot was riding on this launch.

While Vivienne had not been part of OCO since inception – having joined the project in 2012 – she knew OCO’s story. The first launch in 2009 ended in failure – when a faulty launch vehicle doomed the first OCO to a watery grave just moments after launch. In the aftermath, the OCO community were left in limbo, unsure if the project would survive. All was not lost. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) had successfully launched the Greenhouse-gas Observing satellite (GOSAT or IBUKI, Japanese for “breath”) that same year. This launch gave the OCO team an opportunity to test and refine their methods and algorithms using data from GOSAT.

As the gravel poked through the thick flannel blankets, Vivienne shifted uncomfortably waiting for the interminable countdown to reach its conclusion – and then everything stopped. A technical issue was detected, triggering a command to abort the launch.

Vivienne tried to explain to her disappointed daughter that this was simply how things went with space work. Sometimes you put in 1000 work-years of labor, get up in the middle of the night, and sit on uneven ground just to have everything stopped, unceremoniously.

Fortunately, the problem was quickly resolved, and the launch was rescheduled for the very next night. The participants returned to the staging site – rinse and repeat. This time Vivienne’s daughter was decidedly more sluggish. At 3:00 AM PDT, OCO-2 launched flawlessly into space. Unfortunately, a layer of fog obscured the spectators’ view. While it could not be seen, the resounding boom of the rocket taking off could be heard for miles.

For Vivienne, the sonic boom shocked the ears and rumbled through the bodies of the assembled crowd, who erupted in cheers. Having invested a lot of her time in the OCO project during the past two years, she was thrilled to see a successful launch.

As they returned to their hotel, Vivienne’s daughter remained unimpressed. “Mummy, let’s not do that again,” she said as she splayed out on the hotel bed and soon fell fast asleep.

2014: OCO-2 Joins A Larger Earth Observing Story

Leading to surprising new insights about how we see plants – and fires.

When OCO-2 launched in 2014, it joined a tightly coordinated group of Earth-observing satellites known as the Afternoon Constellation (or the “A-Train”) – see Figure 1. Flying in formation, the satellites could combine their observations to unlock more than any one mission could reveal on its own. Around the same time, scientists discovered that OCO-2 could do more than measure CO₂ – it could also detect signs of plant health.

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Ben

I am the owner of Cerebral-overload.com and the Verizon Wireless Reviewer for Techburgh.com. My love of gadgets came from his lack of a Nintendo Game Boy when he was a child . I vowed from that day on to get his hands on as many tech products as possible. My approach to a review is to make it informative for the technofile while still making it understandable to everyone. Ben is a new voice in the tech industry and is looking to make a mark wherever he goes. When not reviewing products, I is also a 911 Telecommunicator just outside of Pittsburgh PA.

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