satellite crashed into the southern Pacific Ocean early today after a protective nose cone fairing failed to separate during launch aboard an Orbital Sciences Corp. Taurus XL rocket. The $424 million failure was the second in a row for the Orbital Sciences booster following the 2009 loss of another environmental satellite due to a similar nose cone malfunction."I think it's not an understatement to say tonight we're all pretty devastated," said Ronald Grabe
Tough track record for Taurus
This was the second failure in a row for a Taurus XL rocket. NASA's $273 million Orbiting Carbon Observatory was lost during launch Feb. 24, 2009, when it suffered a similar nose cone fairing failure.
For NASA, the second Taurus XL failure in a row drove losses to nearly $700 million.
"We've now got to go off, find out what that is, fix it and that is, in fact, what we will do. In the meantime, we've lost the Glory mission. It would have made important measurements for the understanding of Earth as a system and the impacts of climate change. However, [NASA] will continue to contribute and make significant contributions to the understanding of the Earth with its 13 existing missions and a cadre of aircraft, ground networks and data systems contributing to Earth science research."
The 1,200-pound solar-powered Glory spacecraft, also built by Orbital Sciences, was designed to precisely measure how much solar energy enters and leaves Earth's atmosphere and how small particles called aerosols, both manmade and natural, affect the global environment.
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