NASA Global Warming Satellite Launch Fails

The Taurus XL rocket, which lifted off at 4:55 a.m. (EST) from Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA., carrying the Orbiting Carbon Observatory satellite for NASA, did not achieve orbit. Preliminary indications are that the payload fairing on the Taurus XL vehicle failed to separate. The fairing is a clamshell structure which encapsulates the satellite as it travels through the atmosphere.

Orbital, the company that built the satellite, will immediately convene an internal failure investigation board that will include representatives from the company and NASA to determine the cause of today's launch failure. Orbital believes that it is likely that it gathered sufficient data during the flight that will enable the company to identify the cause of the failure.

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory was the latest $278 million dollar mission in NASA's ongoing study of the global carbon cycle. It would have been the first spacecraft dedicated to studying atmospheric carbon dioxide, the most significant human-produced greenhouse gas and the principal human-produced driver of climate change.

This experimental NASA Earth System Science Pathfinder Program mission would have measured atmospheric carbon dioxide from space, mapping the globe once every 16 days for at least two years. It would have done so with the accuracy, resolution and coverage needed to provide the first complete picture of the regional-scale geographic distribution and seasonal variations of both human and natural sources of carbon dioxide emissions and their sinks-the reservoirs that pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and store it.

NASA will provide updates today on the failure and the next steps the company plans to take.