This
story was updated at 9:36 a.m. EST.
NASA's
Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO), a new satellite dedicated to mapping Earth's
carbon dioxide levels, crashed into the ocean near Antarctica just after launch early
Tuesday when a shroud designed to protect the spacecraft accidentally doomed
its mission.
The glitch
occurred just minutes after the $273.4
million spacecraft blasted off at 4:55 a.m. EST (0955 GMT) atop a Taurus
XL rocket that launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
"Our whole
team at a very personal level is disappointed in the events of this morning,"
said John Brunschwyler, the Taurus project manager for the Dulles, Va.-based rocket
manufacturer Orbital Sciences, in a somber post-launch briefing. "It's very
hard."
The 972-pound
(441-kg) OCO spacecraft was NASA's first satellite built exclusively to map
carbon dioxide levels on Earth and understand how humanity's contribution of
the greenhouse gas is affecting global climate change. The satellite carried a
single three-channel spectrometer to make its detailed measurements and was
slated to launch into a near-polar, sun-synchronous
orbit that would fly about 438 miles (705 km) above Earth.
Brunschwyler
said the first sign of trouble during today's failed launch occurred about three
minutes after liftoff, when the Taurus XL rocket's telemetry showed no sign it
had shed its clamshell-like
payload fairing.
The fairing
is a nose-mounted shroud that protects the spacecraft inside from the Earth's
atmosphere until the booster reaches space. Once it separates, launch
controllers expected to see OCO and its upper stage accelerate faster since it
would have shed the excess weight. But that speed boost never occurred.
"As a
direct result of carrying that extra weight, we could not make orbit,"
Brunschwyler said, adding that the failure ultimately sent OCO crashing into
the ocean near Antarctica. "We're fairly certain that it did not fly over any
land and it landed short of Antarctica."
Investigation
on tap
NASA is
assembling a mishap investigation board to investigate the failed launch and,
agency officials hope, pinpoint a root cause. The investigation will be key for
NASA's Glory satellite, an environment-monitoring spacecraft also designed to
aid climate change studies and slated to launch on a Taurus rocket in October.
"Our goal
will be to find a root cause of the problem," said NASA launch director Chuck
Dovale. "We won't fly Glory until we have that data known to us."
NASA's OCO
spacecraft and its Taurus XL booster were built by Orbital Sciences. The
four-stage solid fueled Taurus XL rocket stands about 93 feet (27 meters) tall
and is capable of launching satellites weighing up to 3,500
pounds (1,590 kg) into low Earth orbit. The rocket is a land-based version of
Orbital Sciences' Pegasus booster.
Since
its 1994 debut, the Taurus rocket has flown six successful missions out of eight
launches to orbit 12 satellites. The last Taurus launch reached space
successfully in 2004. The one failure before Tuesday's contingency occurred
in September 2001.
Blow to climate science
The loss of
NASA's OCO spacecraft is a blow to global climate research after eight years
of development to ready the satellite for launch.
Researchers
hoped the spacecraft would provide definitive answers to questions surrounding
Earth's natural carbon dioxide cycle, as well as how the planet processes the 8
billion tons of greenhouse gas produced by the burning of fossil fuels and
other human endeavors each year.
"OCO was to
make some important measurements of the carbon cycle," said Michael Freilich,
director of NASA's Earth Science Division. "What we're going to do is take a good,
solid and thoughtful look at how best to advance earth system science in general,
and with a focus on the carbon cycle, given all the assets that we have available
now and into the near future."
Climate scientists
expected OCO to take the lead in an international collection of weather-monitoring
spacecraft known as the "A-Train," which fly in a train-like progression over
Earth with the goal of building a three-dimensional picture of the planet's
weather and climate change, as well as understanding human contributions to the
greenhouse effect and global warming.
Japan's
recently launched "Ibuki"
climate-studying spacecraft, as well as other satellites already in orbit, may
be able to compensate for the lack of OCO.
While there
is hope to be able to pick up where the OCO's loss left off, much work lies
ahead before NASA officials can "decide how it is best scientifically, and for
the nation, to move forward," Freilich said.
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