Wednesday, 25. February 2009, 17:56:26
Nasa's first dedicated mission to measure carbon dioxide from space has failed following a rocket malfunction. Officials said the fairing - the part of the rocket which covers the satellite on top of the launcher - did not separate properly.
Data indicates the spacecraft crashed into the ocean near Antarctica.
The Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) was intended to help pinpoint the key locations on our planet's surface where CO2 is being emitted and absorbed.
You mean the oceans and volcanoes??Nasa officials confirmed the loss of the satellite at a press conference held at 1300 GMT.
Sciences Corporation, the rocket's manufacturer, told journalists: "Our whole team, at a very personal level, is very disappointed in the events of this morning."
He added: "The fairing has considerable weight relative to the portion of the vehicle that's flying. So when it separates off, you get a jump in acceleration. We did not have that jump in acceleration.
"As a direct result of carrying that extra weight, we could not make orbit."
'Mishap' board The $270m (£190m) mission was launched on a Taurus XL - the smallest ground-launched rocket currently in use by the US space agency.
Since its debut in 1994, this type of rocket has flown eight times, with six successes and two failures including this launch. But this is the first time Nasa has used the Taurus XL.
The US space agency will now put together a "Mishap Investigation Board" to determine the root cause of the nose cone's failure to come off three minutes into the launch.
Onlookers watched the launcher soar into the sky from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 0955 GMT on Tuesday.
The first indication of a problem came in an announcement made by the Nasa launch commentator, George Diller.
"This is Taurus launch control. We have declared a launch contingency, meaning that we did not have a successful launch tonight," he said.
Separation of the fairing was one of the last technical hurdles faced by the satellite as it flew into orbit. Orbital said there had been no changes to the design of the fairing since previous launches.
Mr Brunschwyler, programme manager for the Taurus rockets, cast doubt on any suggestion of a link between the failure and a power glitch which occurred to the vehicle just prior to launch.
"That was on a separate system, so I do not believe there was any connection," Mr Brunschwyler told journalists at the Nasa press conference.
Dr Paul Palmer, a scientist from the University of Edinburgh, UK, who was collaborating on the mission, told BBC News: "I am bitterly disappointed about the loss of OCO. My thoughts go out to the science team that have dedicated the past seven years to building and testing the instrument."
Professor John Burrows, from the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, who is also collaborating on the mission, commented: "The UK and European science community is a major partner in OCO and the loss of this instrument is a serious setback."
Scientists had hoped OCO would improve models of the Earth's climate and help researchers determine where the greenhouse gas is coming from and how much is being absorbed by forests and oceans.
I thought the climate models were as good as you can get?? We've spent billions on the environment because of these models accuracy.This would have helped scientists make more accurate predictions of future climate change.
A nut on the right rear wheel. Look, it's been proven, to get more accurate predictions of future climate change, all you have to do is look at the Sun.Rebuild question Only about 50% of the carbon emitted from human sources - principally, from fossil fuel combustion - stays there. The remainder is mopped up by the land and oceans, which act as "sinks".
What about the plants that BREATHE it??However, scientists are unsure of the precise detail, with perhaps 20% of our CO2 going into a hitherto unrecognised sink.
"All eyes are now on the Japanese Gosat instrument to search for the missing carbon sink," said Dr Palmer.
Gosat was launched in January from Tanegashima in Japan. It is also designed to monitor atmospheric greenhouse gases.
No, it's designed to monitor only CO2, not greenhouse gases. The number one, in both abundance and radiative, is water vapour.Nasa's Glory satellite, which is designed to measure carbon soot and other aerosols in the Earth's atmosphere, is due to launch on a Taurus XL from California in June.
"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's launch director Chuck Dovale.
Taurus is based on Orbital's air-launched Pegasus rockets which have a long, proud history. The fairing is essentially the same as is used on that rocket. Mr Brunschwyler said: "We have not had any issues with this fairing design in the past."
Why a problem now?? Because this would put the plan (not my predictions, it's being planned) of carbon taxes in jeopardy.When the European Space Agency's Cryosat spacecraft was destroyed on launch in 2006, officials decided to re-build it; the launch is scheduled for later in the year. However, the future of the OCO mission remains unclear at this stage.
Wow, I haven't researched this spacecraft. Anyway, wow, two satellites that would dismiss all off the IPCC's findings have failed to launch. That means a success rate of 33%. Is anyone suspicious about this??Responding to a question about spare parts for the US satellite, Michael Freilich, director of Nasa's Earth science division, said: "At this time, we don't have a complete inventory of flight spares, or what we should need, should we make a decision to re-build an OCO."
The only other failure to hit the Taurus rocket occurred in September 2001, when the rocket dropped off its payload of two satellites at a lower altitude than had been intended.

CO2 in the atmosphere has seen a steady rise in recent years
Why don't they put this up against the temperature records?? Because they would show the post-war economic boom cooling doesn't match up with the CO2?? I wash my mouth out.
This was blatantly planned to fail. If it had succeeded, it would show that 1: Water vapour makes up 95% of the greenhouse gases compared to only 4% of CO2. 2: That every time a medium sized volcano erupts, it emits more CO2 than humans have in the past 200 years. 3: Most of the CO2 comes from the oceans.
If it hadn't failed, and it had come back saying what I said it would, the green freaks would have come out about, "oh, you can't trust the satellite data because it would jeopardies NASA's space flights". . .well, no, coming out with the truth would jeopardies NASA more than it saying CO2 is the main cause of warming, due to the FACT that NASA's rockets don't emit CO2, they emit water vapour. Don't believe me?? They use liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen as rocket fuel, which fuse together during launch. Ergo, water vapour.
Now, don't come at me about how I'm only saying this because Alex Jones said it. After my dad told me about the satellite, I told him that it was planned to blow up, for reasons stated above, 5 minutes before The Alex Jones Show last night, in which he said more or less the same thing, and over 20 hours before I actually listened to the podcast because I was so busy last night that I couldn't catch his show live.
This is me saying this through common sense and what I've learnt from doing my own research on it.
I'm gonna upload the PDF for Pertition Project (the 31,072 scientists) tonight because it's a must read for everyone who either believes me or believes the official story.