NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory mission fails
By admin on February 24, 2009 at 1:01 pmThe first climate change monitoring satellite from NASA, that was launched on Tuesday, has failed to reach it’s orbit due to a serious malfunction in the rocket. The Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) was designed for mapping Earth’s carbon dioxide levels and study how the carbon dioxide level changes with time.
Orbiting Carbon Observatory
The $270 million mission was launched by Taurus XL rocket, the smallest ground-launched rocket currently in use by the US space agency, from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base. Within minutes of launch the rocket suffered the fault and the payload fairing, that protects the payload inside from the Earth’s atmosphere, failed to separate properly.
NASA launch commentator, George Diller said that: “It either did not separate or did not separate in the way that it should.” NASA engineers are now busy in trying to find the current location of the satellite and it’s condition. Originally a near-polar, sun-synchronous orbit was slated for the satellite.
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Category: Space | Tags: NASA, Orbiting Carbon Observatory, Satellite, Space
I have not heard of this mission. Too bad for the failure.