NASA Launch Failure
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Notebook
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SiberianTiger
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Urwumpe
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Maybe because it is no liquid rocket.
Also, the Russian launchers all have their umbilicals in the base of the rocket now, so you rarely see them unless you get close.
SlyCoopersButt
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Life isn't always! It's a cold death for any spacecraft, Very sad to see NASA lose this one.That's not nice!
R.I.P OCO.
Latest I see.
1036 GMT (5:36 a.m. EST; 2:36 a.m. PST)
"Right now, we do know that we have not had a successful launch tonight and will not be able to have a successful OCO mission," NASA launch commentator George Diller says.
UPDATE:
[FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, HELVETICA, SANS-SERIF][SIZE=-1]1050 GMT (5:50 a.m. EST; 2:50 a.m. PST)[/SIZE][/FONT]
NASA's $273 million Orbiting Carbon Observatory mission failed today during launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., when the protective nose cone fairing failed to separate properly in the climb to space, agency officials said. Read our full story here.
SiberianTiger
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What that fairing was like? Is there any possible reason why it could not jettison?
Urwumpe
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I think it is a western standard design, explosive bolts with pneumatic pushers. Possible could be a lot of potential failures, for example one fairing half staying connected by a failure of both ignition paths of a bolt.
SlyCoopersButt
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They now gave a pretty good description on spaceflightnow about the fairing. I remember the angry alligator saying! Especially since the Cape is home to many. Still, It's not what I would have expected to happen today!
The Taurus XL failed to reach orbit when the fairing failed to separate. The vehicle didn't have enough delta V to carry the extra mass into orbit. All indications that the fairing sep sequence had been sent was received, but no indications were received that the fairing had indeed separated from the vehicle.
The preliminary indications are that the Taurus XL/OCO stack fell just short of Antartica.
The preliminary indications are that the Taurus XL/OCO stack fell just short of Antartica.
If you look at the high-res version of the image of the OCO in the processing facility on NASA's site, there's a tool stand to the left. I wonder if they used Craftsman tools to close up the fairing?
"Not the official tools of NASA!"
Scrooge McDuck
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That definitely is a Craftsman rollaway cabinet indeed..
You can see a part of the logo on the top-right of the drawer, like on this one.
Now they'll probably tell NASA; "see? we told you we have no official tools for you!" the tools worked a little too well in this case
RisingFury
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Anyone who hasn't seen the launch:
Scrooge McDuck
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Orbinaut Pete
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Aah man
I just heard about this.
Just how much money has gone down the drain, do we think - including cost of satellite, rocket, employees, the actual planning & design of the project, etc...
Must be at least around $1 billion...?
The last 20 years of some poor scientist's life has just fallen into the ocean
I just heard about this.
Just how much money has gone down the drain, do we think - including cost of satellite, rocket, employees, the actual planning & design of the project, etc...
Must be at least around $1 billion...?
The last 20 years of some poor scientist's life has just fallen into the ocean
kwan3217
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The cost of the mission was something like $273 million. That was already spent, now we just aren't going to get anything for it. Also, that's relatively cheap for a science satellite.
And now I shall take this opportunity to rant.
Does it ever bug you that the first sentence of any story on any space mission includes the price? As if to imply, "Hey, look at all those dollars being [strike]wasted[/strike] spent in space, when they could be <strike>not spent in the first place</strike> <strike>given back to the taxpayers</strike> wasted on this other thing I support." :thumbsdown:
Plus, don't exaggerate. Not every space mission costs a billion dollars. Numbers mean something, and if anyone should know that a million and a billion are not the same, it should be us in the Orbiter community. :compbash2:
And why can't I have strikethrough? I can't really express what I want without it. Write your congressman, demand strikethrough!:tumbleweed:
Thank you for indulging my rant. We now return you to your regularly scheduled intelligent forum conversation.
And now I shall take this opportunity to rant.
Does it ever bug you that the first sentence of any story on any space mission includes the price? As if to imply, "Hey, look at all those dollars being [strike]wasted[/strike] spent in space, when they could be <strike>not spent in the first place</strike> <strike>given back to the taxpayers</strike> wasted on this other thing I support." :thumbsdown:
Plus, don't exaggerate. Not every space mission costs a billion dollars. Numbers mean something, and if anyone should know that a million and a billion are not the same, it should be us in the Orbiter community. :compbash2:
And why can't I have strikethrough? I can't really express what I want without it. Write your congressman, demand strikethrough!:tumbleweed:
Thank you for indulging my rant. We now return you to your regularly scheduled intelligent forum conversation.
tblaxland
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I guess I should have made it more obvious that I already knew that :dry:Maybe because it is no liquid rocket.
And it is not like the OCO experiment could have feasibly been conducted from anywhere other than Earth orbit anyway (and getting a good data set on global carbon sources and sinks is critical for beating AGW sceptics into submission
).If it is any consolation, neither of the two articles I read on the launch failure mentioned the cost at all, let alone in the first line. :thumbup:
