Houston, we have a problem. The rocket that was carrying NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory, (OCO for short), crashed moments after taking off today, February 24, 2009. It crashed in the atlantic ocean near Antarctica due to some technical glitches earlier in the morning. The OCO's mission was to monitor carbon dioxide emissions for the next nine years, helping scientists understand the distribution of green house gas. NASA officials say that the 270 million dollar mission was an utter fail. That means NASA lost a whole lot of money, especially in this recession. The OCO was carried in a Taurus XL rocket that successfully launched at 4:55 AM this morning from Vandenberg Air Force Base. Chuck Dovale said that launch and countdown went as normal, except for a minor unrelated glitch. NASA employees began to get hints that something was wrong as soon as the rocket failed to shed the clamshell that held the OCO. With too much weight, the structure was too large to go into orbit. So, gravity then took it's toll and pulled the aircraft to earth. Since it crashed in the middle of the ocean, and nobody was aboard the aircraft, nobody got hurt.
In my opinion, there should be a way to figure out if this kind of glitch will happen. For instance, they could build an exact to scale model that will launch up higher than a toy rocket. It is not good that the craft crashed, because it adds to the pollution. I hope NASA will clean this up. If not, it goes against their mission to go green. The crash could have disturbed habitats of animals if it was elsewhere. What if it crashed in a suburban community like the ones many live in? NASA is totally responsible for this in every way and is lucky that something worse did not happen. All in all, the OCO was a mission gone bad.
Source: National Geographics
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/02/090224-nasa-satellite-crash.html
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