![]() ![]() If the fairing had separated, launch controllers would have expected to see the spacecraft and its upper stage accelerate more quickly, since it would have shed the excess weight. The fairing is a nose-mounted shroud that protects the spacecraft inside from atmospheric drag until the booster reaches space. The satellite carried a single three-channel spectrometer to make its detailed measurements and was slated to launch into a near-polar, sun-synchronous orbit that would fly about 438 miles (705 kilometers) above Earth.īrunschwyler said the first sign of trouble came about three minutes after liftoff, when the Taurus XL rocket's telemetry showed no sign that it had shed its clamshell-like payload fairing. The 972-pound (441-kilogram) OCO spacecraft was NASA's first satellite built exclusively to map carbon dioxide levels on Earth and understand how humanity's contribution of the greenhouse gas is affecting global climate change. "Our whole team at a very personal level is disappointed in the events of this morning," John Brunschwyler, the Taurus project manager for the Dulles, Va.-based rocket manufacturer Orbital Sciences, said in a somber post-launch briefing. ![]()
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