NASA reports that Glory, a satellite to monitor aerosols failed to reach orbit, apparently from a fairing that didn’t release. See update below on the massive budget overruns for this failed project.
NASA’s announcement:
NASA’s Glory spacecraft launched aboard a Taurus XL rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California Friday at 5:09:45 a.m. EST failed to reach orbit.
Telemetry indicated the fairing, the protective shell atop the Taurus XL rocket, did not separate as expected about three minutes after launch.
A press briefing to discuss the Glory launch failure is planned at Vandenberg for approximately 8:00 a.m. EST. NASA TV will carry the press conference live.
The new Earth-observing satellite was intended to improve our understanding of how the sun and tiny atmospheric particles called aerosols affect Earth’s climate.
Project management for Glory is the responsibility of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The launch management for the mission is the responsibility of NASA’s Launch Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., is the launch service provider to Kennedy of the four-stage Taurus XL rocket and is also builder of the Glory satellite for Goddard.
h/t: Sera
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Thanks to Ric Werme for posting this story. See previous issues with this launch here
NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory, another climate satellite, met a similar fate in February 2009 Bad week for hardware: Orbiting Carbon Observatory satellite burns up
Do you think Murphy might be trying to tell NASA something. Like maybe “get back to basics”? – Anthony
UPDATE: Frank K in comments psted this:
<a href=”http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2008-03-25-nasaprojects_N.htm” rel=”nofollow”>Major NASA projects over budget</a>
WASHINGTON — Two-thirds of NASA’s major new programs are significantly over budget or behind schedule, according to the agency’s latest report to Congress.
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Hard choices also will have to be made to make up for the skyrocketing cost of the Glory satellite, which is 31% over budget. Under the 2005 law, NASA can’t spend any money on the project after the summer of 2009 without congressional approval — a requirement that could be moot if NASA launches Glory as planned in April 2009.
To make up for the extra $274 million that Glory and the other three programs will cost, NASA could reduce pre-flight testing, strip planned scientific sensors from over-budget spacecraft and scale back operations of older space missions, Maizel says.
The overruns “all the more put a crimp in NASA’s budget,” which is too small for the agency “to do everything it’s trying to do,” says Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla.
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Ok people. Let’s dump the conspiracy. theories. They are about as credible as NASA’s climate models.
Not sure NASA is ready to return to space. (Yes, I know they are there right now) What NASA needs is an in-depth quality program review. They need a truly strong quality system that guarentees key deliverables, not just more layers of documented bureaucracy. A cornerstone of quality systems is independent audits. We see how GISS hates being audited by outsiders. Could the same disfunction have spread to all of NASA?
This is costing the American taxpayer seriously big money and probably taxpayers in partner countries as well. Clearly, US taxpayers are not getting value for their dollars spent on climate research either on the ground or in orbit from NASA or any of the other main players in Climate Science. And, just for the record, I believe that the study of climate change is very important. The next ice age, the one certain prediction incidentally, will be very unpleasant for the US and extremely unpleasant for Canada and other northern countries.
It went down the glory hole, too bad! Unfortunately, it was paid for by taxpayers’ money.
Sic transit gloria NASAe 🙁
Sounds like rocket scientists should maybe stick to “rocket science”?
Amazing. NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Science can’t launch space missions, but it spend tons of $$ on Climate Science.
NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Science. Isn’t this where Hansen and Gavin work – ON CLIMATE SCIENCE. Since when did it become the responsibility of NASA to worry about Climate Science?
Are the likes of Hansen and Gavin draining money out of the space program to support their own personal agenda in Climate Research? Is this why the space launch failed – misdirected funding?
Why does Gavin, who supposedly works for NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Science, spend his days blogging on REAL CLIMATE? Aren’t Gavin and Hansen supposed to be working on SPACE SCIENCE. Isn’t that what their government funded institute is called? Isn’t that what the taxpayers are supposed to be paying for? Shouldn’t they be doing SPACE SCIENCE NOT REAL CLIMATE?
Could it be that Goddard is infested with space parasites, that are draining funding from space science to conduct climate research? Are Hansen and Gavin space parasites?
Why even bother to send up space vehicles? After all, aren’t Gavin’s models so accurate that they can tell us all we need to know about space without ever going there? Aren’t Gavin’s models so good that they can actually predict the past, even after Hansen’s careful and repeated adjustments to the historical records?
Is it time to shut down the REAL CLIMATE WASTE at Goddard?
The last one in this genre that failed is being rebuilt.
Maybe this is a case of “job security” by workers who don’t want to be laid off..?
Build in a defect and have the product fail on someone else’s tab…
Sounds very creative to me.
J Gary Fox says:
March 4, 2011 at 6:27 am
“Several decades of research and development by very talented people now lie in the Pacific Ocean.”
Huh? They certainly haven’t been building this thing since 1970! Maybe 40 man-years were lost. Ostensibly no R&D is required to replace it since they have all the schematics, software, and construction procedures documented. It’s only a matter of construction time & materials that were lost. Presumably the launch vehicle and payload were commercially insured like just about every other satellite so they don’t even have to beg congress for the funds to try again.
“klem says:
March 4, 2011 at 7:12 am
Everyone I know predicted this satellite would not launch, just like they predicted the failure of the last one about 2 years ago. And just like the last failure they suspected it was due to Big Green somehow not wanting the world to know the ACC truth. I realize this is just the usual conspiracy lunacy but somehow I can’t help being sucked into it this time around.”
Klem, I hate to say it, but I would have bet a small sum that this wouldn’t have made orbit. Which I find sad and scary. And which will help me redouble my efforts to refute the SHAM that is the IPCC and their financiers in the name of freedom and liberty. And I’m a Canadian.
NASA likes to design critical systems with 3 redundant methods. So what we have here are multiple failures. Yet another disaster at NASA.
Another half billion dollars of money that we were forced to borrow at 3% tossed into the Sea. I’m mad. How about you?
“Gavin Schmidt of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Science in New York, commenting on the crash on the Real Climate website, “there is a huge hole building in the US contribution to Earth and Sun observing systems.””
Great. It matches the huge babbling pie hole in your head.
Third Party says:
March 4, 2011 at 7:16 am
“Working from space is hard, expensive and risky. We cannot take it for granted, and yet we need that information more than ever,” said climate scientist Gavin Schmidt of NASAs Goddard Institute for Space Science in New York, commenting on the crash on the Real Climate website, “there is a huge hole building in the US contribution to Earth and Sun observing systems.”
Translation – Forget the cost overruns, bloated budgets, and engineering failures! Gimme more money…I NEED MY GLORY DATA!!
According to the story on this over at sciencedaily.com the system that failed this time is the same one that failed on the Carbon Observatory satellite failure two years ago. So much for the fix to that failure. No problemo though the taxpayers will fund yet a third test of the faring release system though the payload will hopefully be a dummy satellite.
“Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., is the launch service provider” !!
Private sector launch. Maybe launches should be via Russia or France, not private sector where profit comes before performance.
NASA’s Glory…….’splut’…… Perfect.
I’ve been involved with astronautics and aeronautics for +20 years. History has shown that two failures to achieve orbit on one of the newer rocket systems, designed and built by one of the newer launch companies, should not be viewed by anyone as unusual. The older launch systems have higher reliability because they have had their bugs worked out already. The only ‘rat’ here is new system blues and the only conspiracy is entropy.
Launching anything into orbit is expensive and risky. We are at the bottom of a deep and unforgiving gravity well, covered with a dense and active atmosphere. Escaping from this requires huge expenditures of energy, driven and guided by technically complex machinery and computers and usually in multiple stages, to achieve the necessary delta V of +Mach 15 for a stable orbit above the earths atmosphere. The probability of something going wrong is always present, and of a higher probability for newer launch system.
Another satellite that fails to measure climate change …
Speaking of which, I’ve been looking for the update for the CERES albedo study from 2002 which reported a 20% reduction in cloud cover/albedo over a 20 year period. Palle and Goode. Struck me as seriously important. The NASA CERES page goes back to 2002 and ends there. Anyone know about what the recent satellite-EarthShine results are? Thought they were equivalent to CO2 forcing.
It is a great loss. Without good data there is no good science.
Hey, first off, do NOT confuse Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) with Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). GSFC is one of NASA’s major centers and has done good work. I work for a government contracting company, and I worked on NASA contracts at GSFC for many years, ending some 7 years ago.
As to R. Gates’ solution that “commercial launch companies be used”, just what the heck do you think Orbital Sciences is, sir? Orbital Sciences has developed some boost vehicles that are an alternative to such old reliables as the Delta II. I personally do not think much of them. Their first vehicle was the Pegasus, which was a rocket booster to be taken aloft under the wing of a modified B-52 and dropped at 40,000 feet. The booster would then ignite and go, up, up and away. It was designed to launch small payloads (some 400 kg) into low Earth orbit. The first one I worked on, in April 1990, was a success. A few other missions worked. But then they tried to launch the Pegasus XL. CONTRARY TO PREVIOUS NASA PRACTICE, this one was supposed to launch with NO PREVIOUS TESTS. Just–are you ready for this?–computer modelling tests done to verify that the Pegasus XL moter would work.
It didn’t–large expensive failure, that could have been prevented.
The old NASA started to die in 1992, when Dan Goldin took over as administrator. He kept demanding “faster, better, cheaper”, and he did not resist at all when Clinton cut his budget by 31%. THIRTY_ONE FREAKING PERCENT, no resistance. He announced that he was absolutely commited to making NASA a “more diverse” operation, and derided the old NASA as “male, pale, and stale”. (Here’s an idea chump–how about hiring people who could just do the job instead of worrying about quotas?) Behind his back, the NASA types derided him as “Captain Chaos”.
If you check it out, except for Challenger, the old NASA had many fewer failures than under the regimes that started with Dan Goldin.
I got out in 2004.
Perhaps it was an Acme rocket.
Dave Springer @ur momisugly 8:32
Dave, Sorry but NASA does not insure satellites or boosters so we are out all those $$.
Since Orbital Sciences built both Glory and the Taurus XL, maybe they’ll pony up for a replacement (I’m not holding my breath). NASA should have used a Delta II.
Two failures in a row? How long has it been since that happened? I think the Thor program, with well over 200 launches, NEVER had two fail in a row. In fact, Delta #347 was the 92nd straight success! The Taurus system has a failure rate of 33%, with three of the last four launches ending in disaster. Something is rotten in Maryland.
“Ostensibly no R&D is required to replace it since they have all the schematics, software, and construction procedures documented. It’s only a matter of construction time & materials that were lost…” –Dave Springer
Don’t be so sure. Just try to find any of the software or drawings for Apollo!
“…Or is it that NASA’s primary mission of “Muslim outreach” has taken their attention away from how to do space missions? “ –George Spelvin
I believe the Administration backed away from NASA Administrator Bolden’s grandiose (and somewhat insulting) “Muslim outreach” notion after they saw the public reaction. That’s two disasters for Bolden; I think he’s overdue for assignment to the bus chassis inspection detail.
My apologies for neglecting the /sarc tag after my first comment. When I first heard this news yesterday my initial reaction was more like:
vukcevic says:
March 4, 2011 at 9:11 am
“It is a great loss. Without good data there is no good science.”
I couldn’t agree more as setbacks like these delay data collection and cost a great deal of money – both scarce resources these days (data being scarce as what can be attained through FOI requests).
Here’s more…
NASA’s $400 Million Glory Satellite Lost in Pacific Ocean
A rocket that blasted off early Friday carrying the $424 million Earth-observation satellite Glory failed to reach orbit, NASA said, and has most likely crashed into the ocean. In a press conference Friday morning, Omar Baez, NASA launch director, voiced the space agency’s worries about the fate of Glory.
“All indications are that the satellite and rocket are in the southern Pacific Ocean,” Baez said.
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So the satellite itself is $400 million and we know they were 31% over budget in 2008.
Thus the total price tag for this boondoggle is probably closing in on $1 billion.
What can I say? The climate scientists get billions of our tax dollars, get millions more in “stimulus” funds on TOP of that, AND are currently slated for BIG INCREASES in their budgets this year and next. All while they fly to Bali, Copenhagen, Cancun. And then they tell us WE are the problem, and that WE must sacrifice to save the planet…
\rant
Did I say “yesterday”? I meant this morning – seems like yesterday.
John in L du B says: Not sure NASA is ready to return to space.
Mmmmm…. their latest offerings seem pretty spaced out to me…
vukcevic says: It is a great loss. Without good data there is no good science.
One small loss for NASA… one giant loss for mankind…
But look on the bright side… this means business as usual for a lot of folks who are busy singing those immortal words of Tina Turner:
What’s
LoveGood Science got to do, got to do with itWhat’s
LoveGood Science but a second hand emotiontarpon says:
… Muslims in space…..
Wasn’t that a Muppet’s episode??
Europa mission is probably the single most important objective of mankind. I need to know if we are alone in the universe or not before I die!