<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:times new roman,new york,times,serif;font-size:12pt">The technology is based on military missiles, cobbled together. Let's hope they're not relying on them for their primary mission...<br><br><span><a target="_blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taurus_%28rocket%29">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taurus_%28rocket%29</a></span><br><div> </div>Ron Force<br>Moscow Idaho USA<div><br></div><div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><hr size="1"><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b> Ted Moffett <starbliss@gmail.com><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> Moscow Vision 2020 <vision2020@moscow.com><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Mon, March 21,
2011 12:45:49 PM<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> [Vision2020] 424 $Million GLORY Climate Satellite Lost: NASA Names Mishap Board For Taurus XL Launch Failure<br></font><br>
How many teachers' annual salaries would this failure pay for? I'm<br>not a rocket scientist, but it seems that launching a satellite should<br>be a mature reliable technology, after the thousands of satellites<br>humanity has placed into orbit:<br><br>GLORY mission science information:<br><br><span><a target="_blank" href="http://glory.giss.nasa.gov/">http://glory.giss.nasa.gov/</a></span><br><br><span><a target="_blank" href="http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi?id=ha00110y">http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi?id=ha00110y</a></span><br>------------------<br>NASA Names Mishap Board For Taurus XL Launch Failure Investigation<br><br><span><a target="_blank" href="http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/Glory/main/index.html">http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/Glory/main/index.html</a></span><br>-------------------<br><span><a target="_blank"
href="http://articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/05/business/la-fi-satellites-20110305">http://articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/05/business/la-fi-satellites-20110305</a></span><br><br>NASA's Glory satellite launch fails<br><br>The Taurus XL rocket built by Orbital Sciences failed to lift NASA's<br>Earth-observation satellite into orbit and plummeted into the Pacific<br>Ocean. The failed mission cost $424 million.<br><br>March 05, 2011 |By W.J. Hennigan, Los Angeles Times<br><br>A rocket, standing more than nine stories tall, blasted off from<br>Vandenberg Air Force Base but failed to lift a NASA Earth-observation<br>satellite into orbit and plummeted into the Pacific Ocean. The failed<br>mission cost $424 million, the space agency said.<br><br>It is the second consecutive time that NASA has encountered the<br>problem with the Taurus XL rocket built by Orbital Sciences Corp. of<br>Dulles, Va.<br><br>NASA scientists believe the launch on Friday failed
because the<br>satellite's protective cover, which opens like a clamshell, did not<br>separate as expected.<br><br>"Obviously, this is a terrific disappointment and we feel bad for<br>letting NASA … down," said Barron Beneski, an Orbital Sciences<br>spokesman. "People have dedicated years of their lives into this."<br><br>NASA's Glory satellite was designed to help scientists understand how<br>the sun and particles of matter in the atmosphere called aerosols<br>affect the Earth's climate. It was also built by Orbital in Virginia.<br><br>Everything seemed to go as planned from Vandenberg, located northwest<br>of Santa Barbara, shortly after the 3:09 a.m. PST liftoff. Three<br>minutes later, the cover was supposed to separate and the satellite<br>was expected to enter orbit. That didn't happen.<br><br>"We failed to make orbit," Omar Baez, NASA's launch director, said at<br>a news conference. "All indications are that the satellite and the<br>rocket are
in the southern Pacific Ocean somewhere."<br><br>It marks the second time in a row that NASA has encountered a problem<br>with the protective shell separating from the satellite. The space<br>agency's previous Taurus XL launch attempt on Feb. 24, 2009, carrying<br>another Earth science spacecraft, dubbed the Orbiting Carbon<br>Observatory, also failed to reach orbit because of lack of separation.<br><br>Orbital Sciences and NASA investigated the matter and believed that<br>they had identified the problem. On Friday, Orbital Sciences said it<br>was too early to tell whether the latest failure was linked to the<br>issue they previously encountered.<br><br>"Understandably, people are thinking this is the same problem all over<br>again," Beneski said. "It's too early to tell. We have to evaluate all<br>the data before we can say that's true."<br><br>Although the satellite probably will never be recovered, sensors on<br>the spacecraft captured enough
information for engineers to identify a<br>problem, Beneski said.<br><br>Since 1994, Orbital Sciences has attempted to launch a Taurus XL<br>rocket a total of nine times. It has been successful in six of those<br>attempts.<br><br>"That's not a great record," said Marco Caceres, senior space analyst<br>for research firm Teal Group Corp. "Part of the problem is that the<br>Taurus just doesn't launch enough. It's hard to develop a launch<br>rhythm if the rocket is only going up once every few years."<br><br>Both Orbital Sciences and NASA plan to create investigation boards<br>made up of engineers and scientists to evaluate the cause of Friday's<br>failure.<br><br>NASA has another Earth sciences satellite slated to launch on a Taurus<br>rocket in 2013. The space agency plans to wait and see the results of<br>the investigation board before it goes forward with the launch.<br><br>Orbital Sciences shares lost 30 cents, or about 2%, on Friday, closing<br>at
$18.17.<br><br>Also Friday, the launch attempt of the U.S. Air Force's X-37B Orbital<br>Test Vehicle from Cape Canaveral, Fla., was scrubbed because of bad<br>weather. The launch was rescheduled for Saturday at 1:09 p.m. PST.<br><br><a ymailto="mailto:william.hennigan@latimes.com" href="mailto:william.hennigan@latimes.com">william.hennigan@latimes.com</a><br>------------------------------------------<br>Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett<br><br>=======================================================<br> List services made available by First Step Internet, <br> serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994. <br><span> <a target="_blank" href="http://www.fsr.net">http://www.fsr.net</a> </span><br> mailto:<a ymailto="mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com"
href="mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com">Vision2020@moscow.com</a><br>=======================================================<br></div></div>
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