NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory Satellite Crashes

Posted by Alexandra Matiella Novak Feb 24, 2009

The NASA Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) satellite was on it's way to orbit this morning when something went wrong.

The lift off of the satellite on board the Taurus XL launch vehicle was successful, but complete separation of the launch vehicle from the satellite failed, causing the satellite to crash back to Earth somewhere near Antarctica in the ocean, according to NASA.

The OCO satellite was a $237 million project that took eight years to develop. Earth science researchers throughout NASA and the Earth sciene community at large are no doubt devastated by this failure.

The purpose of the OCO satellite was to collect data on one of the most important issues of our time - how carbon dioxide concentrations in our atmosphere will affect the planet's climate and ecosystems. Specifically, the satellite would have mapped locations of carbon dioxide sourcese and sinks around the planet. This information would have helped scientists establish further conclusions of how anthropogenic and natural sources of carbon dioxide affect our climate.

According to NASA, a Mishap Investigation Board is to determine the cause of the launch failure.