NASA Television to Air Briefing on NOAA Space Weather Mission Launch

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Feb 06, 2015, 11:00 ET

WASHINGTON, Feb. 6, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA Television will provide live coverage of a news briefing on the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) mission, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) new satellite mission to monitor space weather, at 1 p.m. EST Saturday, Feb. 7 from the Press Site at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The briefing also will stream live on the agency's website.

Reporters not at Kennedy may ask questions via phone by contacting the Kennedy newsroom at 321-867-2468 no later than 12:30 p.m. Saturday. Questions also can be submitted via social media using the hashtag #askDSCOVR.

DSCOVR is scheduled to launch on Sunday, Feb. 8 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (AFS), Florida. Launch is scheduled for 6:10 p.m. EST.

Participants in the prelaunch news conference are:

Stephen Volz, assistant administrator of the NOAA Satellite and Information Service in Silver Spring, Maryland
Tom Berger, director of the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado
Steven Clarke, NASA Joint Agency Satellite Division director for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington
Col. D. Jason Cothern, Space Demonstrations Division chief at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico
Hans Koenigsmann, vice president of mission assurance at SpaceX in Hawthorne, California
Mike McAlaneen, launch weather officer with the 45th Weather Squadron at Cape Canaveral AFS

DSCOVR is a partnership between NOAA, NASA and the U.S. Air Force. DSCOVR will maintain the nation's solar wind observations, which are critical to the accuracy and lead time of NOAA's space weather alerts, forecasts, and warnings. Space weather events like geomagnetic storms, caused by changes in solar wind, can affect public infrastructure systems such as power grids, telecommunications systems, and aircraft avionics. DSCOVR will succeed NASA's Advanced Composition Explorer in supporting solar observations and provide 15 to 60 minute warning time to improve predictions of geomagnetic storm impact locations.

For more information on the DSCOVR mission, visit:

http://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/DSCOVR/

For NASA TV schedule and video streaming information, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv

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SOURCE NASA