Rocket carrying NASA newest climate satellite fails to reach orbit

PanARMENIAN.Net - A rocket carrying NASA's newest climate satellite failed to reach orbit after its nose cone failed to separate as planned.

The Taurus XL rocket blasted off at about 2:10 a.m. PST (1010 GMT) from a launch pad at the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California carrying NASA's $424 million Glory satellite to study Earth's climate.

The mission had been delayed more than a week due to a computer glitch that thwarted a Feb. 23 launch try.

But minutes after liftoff, the Taurus XL rocket's nose cone – a clamshell-like covering around the satellite called a fairing that is designed to separate during the trip into orbit – suffered some sort of failure, NASA spokesperson George Diller said.

"The fairing did not separate from the Taurus and the Glory spacecraft is not able to achieve orbit," Diller said in televised commentary about 15 minutes after liftoff.

NASA declared a contingency situation after the failed launch to try and understand what went wrong, Space.com reported.

The Glory satellite was designed to study the interaction between the sun's energy and Earth's atmosphere, with a specific focus on tiny particles – called aerosols – and their role in the planet's climate. Scientists hoped the satellite would address key uncertainties in climate research - especially those surrounding the contributions of manmade and natural aerosols to global climate change.

The failure marked the second time in two years that a Taurus XL rocket has failed during launch while carrying a NASA satellite. In 2009, a Taurus XL rocket launched NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory satellite toward orbit only to suffer a fairing malfunction and ultimately crash into the Pacific Ocean.