NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory Mission Fails

jw3 writes "The NASA Orbiting Carbon Observatory scheduled for launch today has failed its mission: the payload fairing failed to separate and the launch managers declared a contingency. George Diller, NASA launch commentator, said, 'It either did not separate or did not separate in the way that it should, but at any rate we're still trying to evaluate exactly what the status of the spacecraft is at this point.'" Update: 02/24 14:17 GMT by T : Reader fadethepolice points out a Reuters report which says that the craft crashed into the ocean just short of Antarctica.

Comments

What's the contingency for these missions?

[jollyreaper]

I know with the Mars rovers the cost of a second rover was small change compared to the development cost of the original. The launch vehicle is expensive, of course, but it was considered cheaper to launch two missions and hope one succeeded than launching one that could fail and mean all the money was wasted.

What sort of contingency do they have for sats like this? Do they just fabricate another one and try again in a year or two?

Re:What's the contingency for these missions?

[Paranatural]

Yes, but even before they launched, the builders were saying how much easier it would be to build a second one, now that all the design work was done and they have experience putting it together. They could probably create it all over again (comparatively) cheaply.

On second thought, maybe they should tack on a year for design refinements and take a look at that whole separation module thingy.

Re:What's the contingency for these missions?

[Guysmiley777]

The main difference is that Mars has historically been very unfriendly to probes (both surface and orbital). Low Earth orbit we have a much better handle on, you can generally assume that launches will succeed.

Of course the Taurus XL launch vehicle hasn't been an overwhelming success, it's 6 for 8 now... Though when the failure comes from payload or fairing separation you'll get people pointing fingers at each other as to what caused the problem. From what I can see the actual rocket stages all performed correctly.

Rebuild?

[talcite]

I wonder if they have another OCO sitting as backup somewhere? Satellites are usually built in pairs just in case one of them fails during launch. Also, the BBC confirmed that the OCO is in the antarctic right now. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7907570.stm

Re:Rebuild?

[jnik]

Satellites are usually built in pairs just in case one of them fails during launch
Not usually...at least none of the NASA or AFRL projects I'm familiar with has a full-build spare. It's not entirely uncommon to have a second of some of the instruments, and it's pretty common to have enough spare parts to build another copy of an instrument. (Much easier to buy a couple of spares up front rather than wait around if someone screws something up.) Then testing and integration can go much more quickly and cheaply, having done it once before. It still can take awhile, though.

(Incidentally, the title and summary for this article suck...the OCO didn't fail, it was lost in a launch failure, and it didn't "fail its mission," it didn't get a chance to start. That's like saying your car broke down because someone ran a red light and T-boned it. No offense intended to the launch team.)

Taurus XL

[JumboMessiah]

Was the decision to use the Taurus to keep launch costs down? Launching from Vandenberg, I'm assuming they were aiming for a steep inclination. Just wondering if anyone knows why they didn't go with a Delta II....

NASA on Twitter

[opec]

It's kind of weird, interesting, and depressing to watch this history be made through NASA's Twitter updates:

• The countdown has begun in California for the launch of NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory in less than 1 hour. The stars are out tonight!
• Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) update: Weather is perfect for launch in less than half an hour.
• OCO launch update: Liftoff is now set for 4:55 EST. Catch it on www.nasa.gov/ntv
• OCO launch update: WE HAVE LIFTOFF!
• OCO launch update: We have Stage 3 ignition. The mission is off to a great start!
• OCO launch update: We have a mission failure. Press briefing to be held at Vandenberg in approximately 2 hours.

Oh dear.

[apodyopsis]

the key satillite designed to monitor global warming and CO2 pollution and hence get scientific data that might affect global business and industrial nations has just nose dived into Antartica?

lets make sure nobody tells the conspiracy theorists, they could have a ball with this one.

Re:well we're f*****d

[TempeTerra]

Disregarding the melodrama of the GP, I know of several good reasons to measure CO_2 throughout the atmosphere and I'm sure the actual scientists know some more.

The atmosphere is actually quite complex, with different layers and surprisingly little mixing between different levels. I mostly know about the southern ozone hole, being from New Zealand which is still pretty fucked by it. The CFCs which destroyed the ozone were released all over the world - mostly in the northern hemisphere even, since that's where the majority of the population is. However the southern polar vortex is the major cause of mixing between the lower and upper atmosphere, so as the CFCs drifted down to Antarctica they were ejected to the upper atmosphere - where the ozone layer is - and reacted with the ozone there eating a big hole in it.

Similarly, CO_2 is released a ground level, but what effect does it have in different layers of the atmosphere? How fast does distribution to different layers occur? With a satellite which could measure this we could build up a body of data correlating CO_2 concentrations in different parts of the atmosphere with climate change and characterise the movement of CO_2 concentrations through the system, giving us an idea of the lead-in time for CO_2 climate change.

As for why CO_2 is important: it's one variable in a complex equation but it's the one we're directly fiddling with.

My prediction: Nasa will launch another satellite, and the research project will be set back 6 months. Yawn.