The CALIPSO satellite co-launched with the CloudSat mission (whose purpose was also for weather and climate modeling) from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on April 28th, 2006. Initially, both satellites joined the satellite constellation, A-Train. However, due to technical issues of CloudSat, it descended its orbit, and a few months later, CALIPSO followed, creating a new orbit, C-Train. It has picked up some really neat things in its journey!