The apparatus was placed into a sun-synchronous orbit.

Today, August 23, at 00:20 am Minsk time from the Kourou launch pad in French Guiana, which is located on the northeast coast of South America, the launch of the carrier rocket light class Vega VV12 with the meteorological satellite of the European Union ADM-Aeolus on Board, according to liga.net.

ADM-Aeolus (from the English. Aeolus Atmospheric Dynamics Mission — a mission to study atmospheric dynamics, “EOL”) is a remote sensing satellite, the revolutionary lidar technology will be at least three years to conduct global monitoring of winds in the surface layer atmosferoy up to 30 km in height.

The unit “hung” on a sun-synchronous orbit (320 km), where it will fly at the speed of a little more than 7 km/s.

The only and main tool of the apparatus — Atmospheric Laser Doppler Instrument (ALADIN) — per hour will be 120 times the scan beam at the wavelength of 355 nm (near UV) profiles of the winds. Laser pulses are sent down, and after that the device measures the Doppler shift of the collected return signal, determining its dispersion on different levels of the atmosphere.

This is the fourth mission to study the Earth in the framework of the ESA “Living Planet Programme”.

To fly over our satellite will be like this:

…And here is how — look and complete the task:

“EOL” locked in the cargo compartment nose fairing of the rocket:

The team writes on the cover “Vasya was Here” and other autographs:

…and takes him to the launch site for installation workers “shipyard” on a four-stage launch:

All ready to start:

Start:

The programme Aeolus clearly show what this is:

The satellite is assembled the defence and space division of Airbus Group and named after the Greek God Aeolus – the ruler of the winds.

Starting weight of “Aeolus” — 1366 kg: 650 kg platform, 450 kg of tools and 116-266 kg of fuel for orbit correction. When folded its dimensions are — 4,6×1,9×2,0 meters. According to the idea, even at the end of the mission the solar panel will provide the system, with 84 A·h battery capacity of 2200 watts.

The mission control center Aeolus is located in Darmstadt, Germany, and to monitor the telemetry and adjust the orbit of engineers will be through large antennas in Kiruna, the northernmost city of Sweden.

See also: NASA has launched a research ship into the Sun video

The creators of the machine assure that the information from the “Aeolus” will not only allow forecasters are less likely to go wrong with predictions, but will provide much food for thought to climatologists.