The Taurus XL Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) satellite, launched Feb. 24 in the last hours of a dark Moon, died an untimely death when it crashed into the Antarctic shortly after its scheduled morning launch in California.
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OCO hours before takeoff. Image courtesy of NASA KSC/Analex and Orbital Sciences Corporation.
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This is NASA’s first launch with the Taurus XL, and it represents an expensive failure. The $278 million project was nine years in development and the engineering team spoke of its “bitter disappointment” over the loss.В
Given the tremendous cost, a rebuild of the satellite is unlikely. Now, potentially groundbreaking data on global warming and carbon dioxide will have to come from other satellites, like Japan’s recently launched Gosat.
NASA’s plans to launch a second satellite to measure carbon soot and aerosols in Earth’s atmosphere may be delayed until engineers discover why the Taurus XL launch failed. Glory, the satellite due to launch in June, will use the same Taurus XL rocket. However, engineers will first take a second look at the Taurus technology.
“Our goal will be to find a root cause for the problem. And we won’t fly Glory until we have that data known to us,” said NASA launch director Chuck Dovale. Today, NASA faces a serious public relations and funding challenge: how to get the American public (and Congress) to support funding for science and space exploration during a deepening recession.
Contrary to the success of the 1960s Apollo missions, over the past two decades NASA’s public reputation has been tarnished by spectacular failures. These days, satellite launches and CO2 emission data are unlikely to become a reason to celebrate among lower- and middle-class Americans.