NASA announced the crash of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory satellite as it was being launched on February 24th. The satellite crashed into the ocean near Antarctica. Scientists worldwide are disappointed as they had been counting on obtaining the data from the satellite to help answer important questions about carbon dioxide in earth’s atmosphere. This was the first time that NASA has used the Taurus XL rocket to launch a satellite. Hopefully, NASA investigators will be able to find out the exact reason for the crash, so future problems can be avoided.

Another new satellite – the Japanese Gosat, which is monitoring atmospheric gases – will soon begin sending back scientific information, so researchers will have some data to work with. An additional American atmospheric research satellite, Glory, is scheduled to launch in June 2009. We hope that launch – also on a Taurus – will succeed! 

You can see video of the unsuccessful OCO launch and NASA’s description of the apparent cause here: BBC Coverage of NASA OCO Launch.