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NASA's Glory Satellite Fails To Reach Orbit

Len Ly |
March 4, 2011 | 8:21 a.m. PST

Senior Staff Reporter

Sitting at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, the Taurus XL rocket with NASA's encapsulated Glory spacecraft in the upper stack, March 3, 2011. Photo by NASA/VAFB
Sitting at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, the Taurus XL rocket with NASA's encapsulated Glory spacecraft in the upper stack, March 3, 2011. Photo by NASA/VAFB
NASA's climate-observing satellite Glory failed to reach orbit on Friday and likely sunk somewhere in the southern Pacific Ocean.

The spacecraft lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 2:09 a.m. PST. But the fairing—a protective shell atop the satellite's Taurus XL rocket--did not separate as expected roughly three minutes after launch.

NASA and the Taurus XL's maker, Orbital Sciences Corp., said at a news conference that more data need to be analyzed. The agency is creating a Mishap Investigation Board to evaluate the cause of the failure and where exactly the spacecraft may have landed.

In February 2009, NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory on board a Taurus XL, also failed to reach orbit when the rocket's fairing did not separate. Following the mission failure, the fairing's separation system was redesigned and has been successfully used on other launches.

Reach reporter Len Ly here. Follow her on Twitter here.



 

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