cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/5763205
One is attached to the International Space Station, and the other is collecting data as a stand-alone satellite. The latter would meet its permanent demise after burning up in the atmosphere if the mission were to be terminated.
A 2023 review by NASA concluded that the data they’d been providing had been “of exceptionally high quality.”
The observatories provide detailed carbon dioxide measurements across various locations, allowing scientists to get a detailed glimpse of how human activity is affecting greenhouse gas emissions.
(Ex NASA employee) David Crisp said it “makes no economic sense to terminate NASA missions that are returning incredibly valuable data,” pointing out it costs only $15 million per year to maintain both observatories, a tiny fraction of the agency’s $25.4 billion budget.
We spent around $1B to develop and launch OCO 1 (failed launch), 2, and 3 combined. Continued operations of OCO 2 and 3 cost about $15M per year in total. Destroying them would be like destroying a skyscraper that is a few years old and costs $15M in annual maintenance. That would be a very cheap building to maintain I’m guessing.
Once on orbit, satellite are extremely cheap and it is our best interests to keep them alive as long as possible.
Not to mention that the money spent isn’t being shot into space. It’s paying for very smart folks to spend in their local communities doing helpful work.
Do you want people with knowledge of orbital mechanics and operating spacecraft on the open job market? Who do you think will employ them?
Normally I’d say Spectre, Gru, M.A.D, etc. but I think they’ve all disbanded as they now have US cabinet posts. I guess they should emigrate to Canada or Mexico and help prepare to defend themselves from the inevitable “security visit” that will start to happen.
If nothing else they could just leave it be
Being that they’re in low earth orbit, they do require some human intervention for station keeping. They also need to monitor the orbits and move the satellite at times to avoid collisions with debris. Lastly, they need to monitor for anomalies so that, if something does go wrong, they can safely dispose of the satellite before the satellite itself becomes another piece of debris.
That, plus data collection and dissipation are the reason the satellites cost $15M/year to operate. The administration wants OCO2 deorbited. I’m not sure what they want done with OCO3 since it is attached to the ISS.
Just let MS Copilot take care of it
/s