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Science 20 April 2007:
Vol. 316. no. 5823, p. 355
DOI: 10.1126/science.316.5823.355c
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ScienceScope

NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration last week restored a key environmental sensor to a long-awaited satellite demonstration mission due to be launched in 2009. But researchers are giving the move only one thumb up: The agencies haven't decided whether to restore the sensor, called the Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite Limb (OMPS-Limb), to six planned satellites that make up the troubled National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS).

OMPS-Limb, which will provide ozone-distribution data for environmental and climate studies, was knocked off the NPOESS demo and the main satellites to save money (Science, 16 June 2006, p. 1580). But in a March letter to the White House, House Science and Technology Committee leadership pointed out that the sensor for the demo had already been built and that it wouldn't cost any more to fly it on the demo.

Remote-sensing expert Berrien Moore of the University of New Hampshire, Durham, applauded the restoration of OMPS-Limb but also wants it on the NPOESS flights "as an operational sensor." A House Science committee staffer says members will continue their push to make that happen.




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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)