NASA’s original Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) was lost in the Indian Ocean following a launch failure in February 2009. Now, 5 years later, OCO-2 is finally ready for launch.

The human use of fossil fuels continues to grow exponentially. Half of all of the fossil fuels ever used on Earth have been burned over the last 20 years. Overall, since the start of the industrial revolution, CO2 in the atmosphere has risen from 280 parts per million to over 400 parts per million in 2014.

This situation may get considerably worse before it gets better. As the climate warms and arctic permafrost melts substantial amounts of greenhouse gasses, including methane and Co2 could be released, causing more warming and a further release of gasses.

The OCO-2 will monitor atmospheric carbon as well as the sources of the gas. The observatory will take 100,000 measurements of the gas daily at locations around the world.

“If you visualize a column of air that stretches from Earth’s surface to the top of the atmosphere, the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 will identify how much of that vertical column is carbon dioxide, with an understanding that most is emitted at the surface. Simply, it will act like a plane observing the smoke from forest fires down below, with the task of assessing where the fires are and how big they are. Compare that aerial capability with sending a lot of people into the forest looking for fires. The observatory will use its vantage point from space to capture a picture of where the sources and sinks of carbon dioxide are, rather than our cobbling data together from multiple sources with less frequency, reliability and detail,” said Gregg Marland, a professor in the Geology Department of Appalachian State University, Boone, North Carolina in a statement.

While OCO-2 will not directly have an impact on limiting climate change or greenhouse gasses it will help scientists to understand where atmospheric carbon is coming from, where it is building up and where the carbon sinks, pulling gas from the atmosphere, are.

“Now that humans are acknowledging the environmental effects of our dependence on fossil fuels and other carbon dioxide-emitting activities, our goal is to analyze the sources and sinks of this carbon dioxide and to find better ways to manage it,” said Marland.

OCO-2 will launch on Tuesday, July 1 from Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB) in California. Extensive prelaunch and launch day coverage will be streamed on NASA’s web site at nasa.gov.