Posted by
BLOGASSAULT on Tuesday, February 24, 2009 10:16:20 AM
The Taurus XL rocket carrying the Orbiting Carbon Observatory blasted off just before 2 a.m. from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base.
But minutes later, the fairing on the rocket failed to separate, a preliminary investigation found. The fairing is a clamshell cover protecting the satellite as it is blasted through the atmosphere.
The rocket landed in the ocean near Antarctica. A group of environment ministers from more than a dozen countries are meeting on the southern continent this week to get the latest science on global warming.
NASA said it will convene a team of experts to investigate the loss of the satellite.
To bad really; this will slow down the alarmists ability to scare us with more "scientific" data.