Earth-monitoring Landsat 9 satellite launches in California

By JOHN ANTCZAK
Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The latest in a series of U.S. satellites that has recorded human and natural impacts on Earth’s surface for decades has been launched into orbit from California to ensure continued observations in the climate change era. The Landsat 9 satellite was carried into space aboard a rocket that lifted off from foggy Vandenberg Space Force Base at 11:12 a.m. The satellite successfully separated from the rocket’s upper stage more than an hour later. Landsat 9 will work in tandem with Landsat 8 to extend a nearly 50-year record of land and coastal region observations that began with the launch of the first Landsat satellite in 1972.