An
ill-fated Rockot booster launches a European ice-watching satellite skyward,
but fails to orbit its payload.
A missing command in the Rockot’s onboard computer prevented the booster’s
second stage from shutting down as planned, and it instead continued to fire
until it depleted its fuel. The ice-watching satellite Cryosat, built for the
European Space Agency (ESA) to study the effects of climate change on polar ice
sheets and sea ice, plunged into the Arctic Ocean near the North Pole before
completing its first orbit around Earth.
The
1,500-pound satellite’s mission cost about $170 million and called for a
three-year study of the Earth’s ice caps.
-- SPACE.com Staff
Credit: ESA/S. Corvaja.
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