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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You folks implying conspiracy are both making climate skeptics look like raving lunatics (thanks for that, BTW) and sadly missing the real problem at NASA.
YouTube search for “Bill Whittle: The Free Frontier” for the real cause of NASA’s total ineptitude.
Chris R. says: March 4, 2011 at 9:26 am
I work for a government contracting company, and I worked on NASA contracts at GSFC for many years, ending some 7 years ago.
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.
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Here are NASA annual budgets, in $Billions/year:
1987 7,591
1988 9,092
1989 11,036
1990 12,429
1991 13,878
1992 13,961
1993 14,305
1994 13,695
1995 13,378
1996 13,881
1997 14,360
1998 14,194
1999 13,636
2000 13,428
2001 14,095
2002 14,405
2003 14,610
2004 15,152
2005 15,602
2006 15,125
2007 15,861
2008 17,318
Clinton was President from Jan ’93 to Jan ’01. The budget numbers during those years look kinda constant to me. Even adjusted for inflation, there is no 31% drop. Budget data source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Budget
Tree hugger’s disease strikes NASA yet again.
So they are not good at their primary job, but are very good at the secondary job?
Gavin continues to marginalize and stereotype the readers and contributers here.
[Response: ……….then…. Leave that for the idiots at WUWT. – gavin]
[Reply: Gavin just has sour grapes about this and this.☺ ~dbs, mod.]
Gavin continues to marginalize and stereotype the readers and contributers here.
[Response: …his rant…….then…. “Leave that for the idiots at WUWT.” – gavin]
I sincerely hope that this is the last attempt to waste money on the grand boondoggle of AGW, but it won’t be.
I also darkly ponder another issue; NASA has been cooking the books in climate data sets, so what proof is there that we’d have seen actual data (rather than doctored data with an artificial bias) from these failed satellites, had they worked?
NASA destroyed their credibility with its climate shenanigans, so IMHO, questioning their trustworthiness regarding actual data is a valid premise.
But, But ,But, it worked OK when we ran the launch thru the CRU modeling supercomputer !!!!
In a public relations press release, NASA’s Dr. Hansen is attributing the nearly half-Billion dollar Glory’s rocket failure to Global Warming.
Time to let private industry do the heavy lifting and let NASA tend to outreach programs http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/07/nasas_muslim_outreach_106214.html
Inglorious American superior technology…
Geee, ask the French, the Russian, the Japanese, or even the Chinese… They got very reliable launcher.
Can the conspiracy theories.
Launching a satellite into orbit is tough, full of risk, and far from a sure bet. Great efforts are made to economize. The failure of this mission is heartbreaking.
http://www.space.com/11027-glory-ious-launch.html
There were also three amateur-radio satellites aboard this Taurus XL rocket. All were lost. Most of the work on the satellites was by volunteers.
March 02, 2011
Orbital Successfully Launches Patriot Target Vehicle for Missile Defense Test
February 07, 2011
Orbital Successfully Launches Minotaur I Rocket for U.S. Air Force
December 30, 2010
Orbital-Built KOREASAT 6 Commerical Communications Satellite Successfully Launched
Event Calendar
Jan 24-27, 2011 AMS Annual Meeting
Mar 14-17, 2011 Satellite 2011
April 20, 2010
Orbital Applauds President Obama’s New Direction For America’s Civil Space Program
They don’t seem to have any problems launching for the military, nor do they have any problems with earnings (up) or getting awarded bunches of new contracts.
They are 100% behind the new direction that the President has tasked NASA with.
Murphy Strikes Back?
Dan in California March 4, 2011 at 3:57 pm says:
In a sense those numbers aren’t so bad. The cost of televisions, electronics and vehicles in the intervening years has tumbled relative to the rate of inflation. Moreover performance and reliability have increased remarkably.
In 1969, the cost of a Saturn V including launch was US $ 185 million (inflation adjusted US$ 1.11 billion in 2011).
Glory satellite alone valued at US$424 million. During the previous failed Taurus XL launch, the vehicle and services were estimated to have cost $54m.
As for the OCO mission
Gee whiz. I’m not quite sure what to say….
Is NASA’s contingency plan, a moved up de-orbit of the ISS? That ought to free up a few bucks for ‘Glory Science’. Next on the chopping block are the non-terrestrial planetary mission.
Looking up and dreaming of the stars has muxed into looking downward to prove the sky is falling.
I miss the Avro Arrow. The Apollo moon landings peaked too early. Misanthropy sucks.
Back when we had the promise of a reusable launcher. The DC-X
Ain’t dead yet BTW.
Launch and Land like God and Heinlein intended…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X
My kind of Four-engine Douglas…
J Gary Fox says: March 4, 2011 at 6:27 am
You must be joking. Right?
For the first time in my life, I feel good about being cynical.
I must pay envirofascista $100+/month in ‘Smart hydro meter’ Ontario to help develop increasingly unreliable wind blown service. I don’t give a fig about the $billions that NASA throws away.
Their hubris and vanity puts the smile on my face. It keeps me gloating at every misadventure.
R. Gates says:
March 4, 2011 at 6:16 am
Very unfortunate as this satellite could have answered some very important questions. Perhaps it’s time to look for commercial launch companies to take the roll of launching important research satellites.
Well, it was — NASA contracted with OSC (Orbital Sciences Corporation) for this one.
GregO says:
March 4, 2011 at 7:21 pm
Can the conspiracy theories.
Launching a satellite into orbit is tough, full of risk, and far from a sure bet. Great efforts are made to economize. The failure of this mission is heartbreaking.
Can Hansen instead. What he intends for Humanity, assisted by and under the banner of NASA, and especially for anyone who objects to it, is a little worse than this heartbrake.
Geo says:
March 4, 2011 at 4:46 pm
Gavin continues to marginalize and stereotype the readers and contributers here.
[Response: …his rant…….then…. “Leave that for the idiots at WUWT.” – gavin]
Uh, Kemosabe..him only part of Big Chief Hansenman’s NASA GISS Climate tribe, worship at CO2=CAGW Hockeystick totem, very bent…take Warming Model as squaw….all high on Charlie Sheen….
Isn’t it like that old saying from Richard III – for want of a nail? In this case, for want of a few good explosive bolts (or whatever they use to release a protective shell), a multi-billion dollar project goes down the tubes.
This is why I think everyone at NASA should take a small break from space for a while, de-stress, and figure out how to analyze, manage and perfect the small details again. It is striking out on the small details that have caused all of NASA’s failures in space missions. There is really NO margin for error when it comes to space flight, whether mechanical or manned.
I was finished with NASA when The Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) was canceled and it was around the time when “climate change pseudo-political-science of AGW” kicked in.
As an enthusiast in space exploration, science and astronomy, NASA and the European Space Agency have reached an all time low in my opinion, the majority of science being done seems to based around “Social Anthropology”, “political climate sciences” and all the other so called sciences that are evolved in the monitoring human activity.
All of which have nothing what so ever to do with space exploration the advancement of science or the well being of mankind, It has now become a pointless inward looking activity, very much involved with political agendas, intertwined with Neo-environmental and Social media stunts, It’s the control of Human Beings these programs are about, I’m calling it like it is!
It’s not very inspiring to see another satellite sent up there to monitor human emissions of one kind or another in the first place, and it certainly doesn’t give a sense of confidence these space programs either of the monetary cost or the amount of failure involved.
The whole scientific community seems to be wrapped around information and technology, sitting around playing with models and their expensive super-computers, accumulating thousands of years of data and to be recognized for their peer-reviewed interpretation and who can not be criticized because of how intelligent and important they are (woop de fricken doo).
There must be a lot of frustrated scientists, Astronomers and engineers in these dark days of the anthropological era of doom, and the forecast of the continued rise of this idiosyncratic society is mirrored by the cost and failure of it’s ventures.
Young minds today are more inspired by the belief in Aliens and cover up conspiracy’s, Why? because we are not out there exploring the real universe, pushing the boundary’s, they are not involved with the experiences of those who could be in space or discovering what really is out there, instead (sigh…), they are asked to count contrails and blow bubbles, that’s right! exciting times folks.
GregO says:
“Launching a satellite into orbit is tough, full of risk, and far from a sure bet. Great efforts are made to economize. The failure of this mission is heartbreaking. ”
Two times the same error points in my view to having wrong priorities set. Those who ask NASA to focus on space are possibly pointing at the root cause Greg.
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=7254
If some of those mil$ used for GISS studying warming would have been used for the rocket this might have been avoided.
I would say there is a 50/50 chance that the launch went as planned and we now have 2 new spy satellites in orbit without anyone being the wiser. If you never hear from me again, it will confirm that I was ri—————————————————–
I was finished with NASA when The Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) was canceled and it was around the time when “climate change pseudo-political-science of AGW” kicked in.
As an enthusiast in space exploration, science and astronomy, NASA and the European Space Agency have reached an all time low in my opinion, the majority of science being done seems to based around “Social Anthropology”, “political climate sciences” and all the other so called sciences that are evolved in the monitoring human activity.
All of which have nothing what so ever to do with space exploration the advancement of science or the well being of mankind, It has now become a pointless inward looking activity, very much involved with political agendas, intertwined with Neo-environmental and Social media stunts, It’s the control of Human Beings these programs are about, I’m calling it like it is!
It’s not very inspiring to see another satellite sent up there to monitor human emissions of one kind or another in the first place, and it certainly doesn’t give a sense of confidence these space programs either of the monetary cost or the amount of failure involved.
The whole scientific community seems to be wrapped around information and technology, sitting around playing with models and their expensive super-computers, accumulating thousands of years of data and to be recognized for their peer-reviewed interpretation and who can not be criticized because of how intelligent and important they are (woop de fricken doo).
There must be a lot of frustrated scientists, Astronomers and engineers in these dark days of the anthropological era of doom, and the forecast of the continued rise of this idiosyncratic society is mirrored by the cost and failure of it’s ventures.
Young minds today are more inspired by the belief in Aliens and cover up conspiracy’s, Why? because we are not out there exploring the real universe, pushing the boundary’s, they are not involved with the experiences of those who could be in space or discovering what really is out there, instead (sigh…), they are asked to count contrails and blow bubbles, that’s right! exciting times folks.
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