A mission carrying a climate satellite into orbit apparently failed today when the satellite failed to separate from the rocket, Nasa said.
"Several minutes into the flight of the Taurus rocket carrying Nasa's Orbiting Carbon Observatory spacecraft, launch managers declared a contingency after the payload fairing failed to separate," the space agency said in a statement..
"We are still evaluating the status of the location and the exact state," Nasa TV announcer George Diller said in live coverage of the launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
"We have not had a successful launch tonight."
The $278 million Orbiting Carbon Observatory was going to to measure carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and to determine what happens to the climate-changing pollutant.
Reuters
