"LOS ANGELES — After a five-year delay, an Earth-observing satellite will be launched to test new technologies aimed at improving weather forecasts and monitoring climate change."

"The $1.5 billion NASA mission comes in a year of weather extremes from the Midwest tornado outbreak to the Southwest wildfires to hurricane-caused flooding in New England. ...

The satellite will lift off before dawn Friday from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., aboard a Delta 2 rocket that will boost it into an orbit some 500 miles high."

The Associated Press had the story October 24, 2011. [2]