[Vision2020] 424 $Million GLORY Climate Satellite Lost: NASA Names Mishap Board For Taurus XL Launch Failure

Ted Moffett starbliss at gmail.com
Tue Mar 22 16:24:58 PDT 2011


Given the discussion about NPR funding, consider that this lost GLORY
satellite represented 424 million smackers dumped into the Pacific ocean,
years worth of NPR funding at the figure given on Vision2020 of 94 million
annually
------------------------------------------
Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett

On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 4:20 PM, Ron Force <rforce2003 at yahoo.com> wrote:

>  The technology is based on military missiles, cobbled together. Let's
> hope they're not relying on them for their primary mission...
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taurus_%28rocket%29
>
> Ron Force
> Moscow Idaho USA
>
>
>  ------------------------------
> *From:* Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com>
> *To:* Moscow Vision 2020 <vision2020 at moscow.com>
> *Sent:* Mon, March 21, 2011 12:45:49 PM
> *Subject:* [Vision2020] 424 $Million GLORY Climate Satellite Lost: NASA
> Names Mishap Board For Taurus XL Launch Failure
>
> How many teachers' annual salaries would this failure pay for?  I'm
> not a rocket scientist, but it seems that launching a satellite should
> be a mature reliable technology, after the thousands of satellites
> humanity has placed into orbit:
>
> GLORY mission science information:
>
> http://glory.giss.nasa.gov/
>
> http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi?id=ha00110y
> ------------------
> NASA Names Mishap Board For Taurus XL Launch Failure Investigation
>
> http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/Glory/main/index.html
> -------------------
> http://articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/05/business/la-fi-satellites-20110305
>
> NASA's Glory satellite launch fails
>
> The Taurus XL rocket built by Orbital Sciences failed to lift NASA's
> Earth-observation satellite into orbit and plummeted into the Pacific
> Ocean. The failed mission cost $424 million.
>
> March 05, 2011  |By W.J. Hennigan, Los Angeles Times
>
> A rocket, standing more than nine stories tall, blasted off from
> Vandenberg Air Force Base but failed to lift a NASA Earth-observation
> satellite into orbit and plummeted into the Pacific Ocean. The failed
> mission cost $424 million, the space agency said.
>
> It is the second consecutive time that NASA has encountered the
> problem with the Taurus XL rocket built by Orbital Sciences Corp. of
> Dulles, Va.
>
> NASA scientists believe the launch on Friday failed because the
> satellite's protective cover, which opens like a clamshell, did not
> separate as expected.
>
> "Obviously, this is a terrific disappointment and we feel bad for
> letting NASA … down," said Barron Beneski, an Orbital Sciences
> spokesman. "People have dedicated years of their lives into this."
>
> NASA's Glory satellite was designed to help scientists understand how
> the sun and particles of matter in the atmosphere called aerosols
> affect the Earth's climate. It was also built by Orbital in Virginia.
>
> Everything seemed to go as planned from Vandenberg, located northwest
> of Santa Barbara, shortly after the 3:09 a.m. PST liftoff. Three
> minutes later, the cover was supposed to separate and the satellite
> was expected to enter orbit. That didn't happen.
>
> "We failed to make orbit," Omar Baez, NASA's launch director, said at
> a news conference. "All indications are that the satellite and the
> rocket are in the southern Pacific Ocean somewhere."
>
> It marks the second time in a row that NASA has encountered a problem
> with the protective shell separating from the satellite. The space
> agency's previous Taurus XL launch attempt on Feb. 24, 2009, carrying
> another Earth science spacecraft, dubbed the Orbiting Carbon
> Observatory, also failed to reach orbit because of lack of separation.
>
> Orbital Sciences and NASA investigated the matter and believed that
> they had identified the problem. On Friday, Orbital Sciences said it
> was too early to tell whether the latest failure was linked to the
> issue they previously encountered.
>
> "Understandably, people are thinking this is the same problem all over
> again," Beneski said. "It's too early to tell. We have to evaluate all
> the data before we can say that's true."
>
> Although the satellite probably will never be recovered, sensors on
> the spacecraft captured enough information for engineers to identify a
> problem, Beneski said.
>
> Since 1994, Orbital Sciences has attempted to launch a Taurus XL
> rocket a total of nine times. It has been successful in six of those
> attempts.
>
> "That's not a great record," said Marco Caceres, senior space analyst
> for research firm Teal Group Corp. "Part of the problem is that the
> Taurus just doesn't launch enough. It's hard to develop a launch
> rhythm if the rocket is only going up once every few years."
>
> Both Orbital Sciences and NASA plan to create investigation boards
> made up of engineers and scientists to evaluate the cause of Friday's
> failure.
>
> NASA has another Earth sciences satellite slated to launch on a Taurus
> rocket in 2013. The space agency plans to wait and see the results of
> the investigation board before it goes forward with the launch.
>
> Orbital Sciences shares lost 30 cents, or about 2%, on Friday, closing
> at $18.17.
>
> Also Friday, the launch attempt of the U.S. Air Force's X-37B Orbital
> Test Vehicle from Cape Canaveral, Fla., was scrubbed because of bad
> weather. The launch was rescheduled for Saturday at 1:09 p.m. PST.
>
> william.hennigan at latimes.com
> ------------------------------------------
> Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
>
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