An international effort to learn more about the complex interaction between the Earth and Sun took another step forward with the launch of WIND spacecraft from Kennedy Space Center (KSC). WIND spacecraft is studded with eight scientific instruments - six US, one French, and one - the first Russian instrument to fly on a US spacecraft - that collected data about the influence of the solar wind on the Earth and its atmosphere. WIND is part of the Global Geospace Science (GGS) initiative, the US contribution to NASA's International Solar Terrestrial Physics (ISTP) program.