Friday, March 4, 2011

Climate Satellite Lost

Early this morning, NASA lost a satellite when the nose cone of the Taurus XL launcher carrying the satellite failed to separate, leaving the vehicle too heavy to reach orbit. It was the second consecutive failure for a Taurus XL.

The lost satellite, called "Glory," was to measure the amount of aerosols in the atmosphere-- both natural and artificial-- and to measure solar energy entering the atmosphere. Aerosols deflect escaping energy back down into the atmosphere, thus playing a role in the global warming debate, which at some point became the climate change debate. Glory was designed to get more data to allow a better basis for understanding the Earth's complex and dynamic atmosphere. Now, getting that data will be delayed.

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