Down goes the first satellite dedicated to measuring carbon dioxide levels and sources…

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Officials said the fairing – the part of the rocket which covers the satellite on top of the launcher – did not separate properly.

Data indicates the spacecraft crashed into the ocean near Antarctica.

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) was intended to help pinpoint the key locations on our planet’s surface where CO2 is being emitted and absorbed…

Onlookers watched the launcher soar into the sky from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 0955 GMT on Tuesday.

…The first indication of a problem came in an announcement made by the Nasa launch commentator, George Diller.

“This is Taurus launch control. We have declared a launch contingency, meaning that we did not have a successful launch tonight,” he said.

Charles Mudede—who writes about film, books, music, and his life in Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, the USA, and the UK for The Stranger—was born near a steel plant in Kwe Kwe, Zimbabwe. He has no memory...

11 replies on “It Always Happens This Way”

  1. What the hell do you mean by “It Always Happens This Way”? Quiz: What percentage of satellites fail to seperate from their housing upon reaching orbit?

  3. Mother Nature is angry.
    Humans are taking credit for planet climate change.
    She will destroy all your puny satellites until you acknowledge her supremacy.

  4. “Launch contingency” means failure? This is gonna be my new favorite euphemism. I.e. the Bush administration was a “launch contingency”. The McCain/Palin campaign was a “launch contingency”.

  9. @4 – It doesn’t necessarily mean failure. They have a plan, that plan has predicted contingencies for foreseeable failure modes. To have a “launch contingency” means that their mission has deviated from the plan along one of those predicted paths of failure.

    I can’t accept that the Bush administration or the McCain/Palin ticket had any ability to plan anything, even their own failure. If anything they are perfect examples of inability to plan for contingencies.

    It does have a nice ring to it though, in its colossal understatement.

  11. In 2009 we still can’t get rockets into space reliably and we’re supposed to believe we put a man on the moon 40 years ago?

    Yea, right!

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