NASA Rocket Crashes Into Ocean After Liftoff
The USA Today reports:
VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, California (AP) — It looks like the rocket carrying an Earth-observation satellite was in the Pacific Ocean after a failed launch attempt early Friday, NASA said.
The Taurus XL rocket carrying NASA's Glory satellite lifted off around 2:10 a.m. PT from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
But NASA said in a brief statement that a protective shell or fairing atop the rocket did not separate from the satellite as it should have about three minutes after the launch.
That left the Glory spacecraft without the velocity to reach orbit, NASA launch commentator George Diller said.
"The flight was going well until the time of fairing separation," Diller said. "We did not have a successful fairing separation from the Taurus and there was insufficient velocity with the fairing still on for the vehicle to achieve orbit."
Glory was launched on a three-year mission to analyze how airborne particles affect Earth's climate. Besides monitoring particles in the atmosphere, it will also track solar radiation to determine the sun's effect on climate change.
The $424 million mission is managed by the NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
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