NASA Friday launched two satellites to study clouds.

    BEIJING, April 29 (Xinhuanet) -- NASA Friday launched two long-awaited satellites designed to help scientists refine computer models that forecast the weather and chart global climate change.

    CloudSat and CALIPSO lifted off at 6:02 a.m. EDT (1002 GMT) aboard an unmanned Delta rocket from the new Space Launch Complex 2W at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base.

    With powerful radar instruments, CloudSat is able to peer deep into the structure of clouds and map their water content.

    "CloudSat will answer basic questions about how rain and snow are produced by clouds, how rain and snow are distributed worldwide, and how clouds affect the Earth's climate," principal investigator Graeme Stephens of Colorado State University said.

    Sister probe CALIPSO, or Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations, will pinpoint aerosol particles and track how they interact with clouds and move through the atmosphere.

    The two satellites are the first Earth- or space-based instruments capable of viewing cloud layers and analyzing possible effects of the moisture and airborne particles within them on global weather and long-term climate patterns.

    CloudSat and CALIPSO were originally slated to lift off in midsummer last year, but technical problems followed by a prolonged strike by Boeing aerospace workers and delayed their launch until April 21. A variety of communications, logistical and weather glitches scrubbed successive launch attempts for another week. Enditem 

(Agencies)