[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 21 (Monday, February 9, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S847-S848]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          DISCOVERY SATELLITE

  Mr. NELSON. Madam President, the third and last subject I wish to 
address is the launch of a major spacecraft/satellite which will be for 
the interest of the United States and the free world. Hopefully, that 
will take place tomorrow evening around 6 p.m.
  I was at the Cape last night thinking that the Discovery satellite 
was going to be launched atop a Falcon rocket on pad 40 at the Cape 
Canaveral Air Force Station. All systems were go, save for the radar 
system on the eastern test range of the Air Force Operational Test and 
Evaluation Center. The radar system went down, and they obviously 
cannot launch a rocket if they can't track it precisely, just in case 
it were to err from its course and had to be destroyed. So it was 
postponed. It has now been rescheduled for tomorrow night at 
approximately 6 p.m.

[[Page S848]]

  Why is this important? It is important because there are three major 
instruments. There are many more, but I will only mention three. No. 1, 
it will constantly aim an instrument at the Sun so when there is an 
additional solar explosion, which is a nuclear explosion on the face of 
the Sun, and all that additional radiation starts coming in what is 
known as solar wind to the United States, we can prepare for that 
nuclear radiation and save our satellites, save certain electrical grid 
systems, and warn pilots who are flying a route over the poles where 
the magnetic field of the Earth does not protect and repel against the 
nuclear radiation coming from the Sun, which is extremely important to 
commercial satellites, commercial systems on the ground, and is 
especially important to our military warning satellites.
  We are fortunate there is a satellite that was put up in the late 
1990s. Its acronym is ACE. It had a design life of 5 years, which would 
have been the early 2000s. This little satellite keeps producing. It 
measures the solar wind, or nuclear radiation, coming from the Sun 
about every 40 minutes. It was supposed to have been dead years ago. It 
is still perking.
  This satellite will replace it and will warn us of a nuclear blast--
not every 40 minutes but much more rapidly, like every 1 or 2 minutes, 
which will give us the ability to save our systems on the ground and in 
orbit. That is one instrument.
  Now, since this payload will be at a neutrally buoyant point where 
the Earth's gravitational pull stops and the Sun's gravitational pull 
stops--called the Lagrangian Point No. 1, or L-1, between the Earth and 
the Sun--which is a little less than 1 million miles from the Earth, 
and because the gravitational pull of the Sun is much greater--it is 
about 92 million miles from the Sun--it will stay there and constantly 
look at the Sun in one direction, and in the other direction it looks 
at the Earth.
  These are the other two instruments. One instrument will constantly 
measure the heat coming from the Sun that is being absorbed by the 
Earth, and that instrument then also measures the amount of heat that 
is reflected off of the Earth and radiated back out into space.
  So if you want to measure exactly how the Earth is heating up, you 
get this very precise measurement of what is being absorbed minus what 
is being radiated back out into space, and you will know exactly how 
much heat the Earth is absorbing and how this planet is heating up.
  The final instrument is one that was conceived of by then-Vice 
President Al Gore, who at my invitation was there yesterday. I don't 
know if he is going to be able to stay over until tomorrow to see the 
launch.
  What Al Gore knew was that 42 years ago was the last time we had a 
full sunlit picture of the Earth. It was by the Apollo 17 astronauts on 
the face of the moon. They got the Earth just at the exact time. They 
were able to photograph one-half of the Earth, which was lit by the Sun 
behind the astronauts on the moon. That was the last time we had a 
full, live picture of the Earth.
  We have had many other pictures, but what they are is a strip here 
and a snippet there, and they are all stitched together--even though 
they were taken at different times--to make a composite of what the 
Earth looks like.
  What the satellite Discovery will do, as its camera looks straight 
back at Earth, taking about 13 photographs in a 24-hour period, since 
the satellite is between the Earth and the Sun, it is able to look back 
with the telephoto lens and it will always see the sunlit side of the 
entire side of the Earth as it rotates on its axis every 24 hours and 
as it rotates around the Sun every 365 days. That will give us a new 
perspective of the overview effect of what this home that we call 
planet Earth is and what it looks like on a daily basis every 2 hours.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.

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