Pat Dollard

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Times Online:

Nasa admitted yesterday that the US Government’s first attempt to map carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere from space had come to an inglorious end, when the rocket carrying the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) crashed into the Pacific. The spacecraft that was supposed to save us from global warming was carrying a highly toxic fuel, hydrazine.

Nasa insisted that the fuel had been burnt up before poisoning the ocean.

Having worked on the $278 million (£192 million) observatory for almost a decade, the scientists leading the mission were devastated.

Grahic

The doomed mission was Nasa’s first using a Taurus rocket, which debuted in 1994 and has had six successful flights and one failure.

No one from the Orbital Sciences Corporation was available to comment yesterday.

No carbon footprint analysis of the mission has yet been made available. Rocket fuels typically emit only small amounts of carbon dioxide during blast-off, but they are hugely energy intensive to manufacture and to transport.

An investigation board was convened to determine the cause of the accident.

Alan Buys, a spokesman for Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said: “The lift-off was smooth.” The contingency plan had to be declared when the rocket was fairly well into its ascent over the Pacific, he added.

Chuck Dovale, Nasa’s flight director,said that all the evidence suggested that every stage of the rocket burnt up during the ascent, meaning that there was no environmental threat from the hydrazine. He called it a huge disappointment for the entire scientific community.

Michael Freilick, director of Nasa’s science division, added that it was too early to say whether any of the spacecraft could be salvaged, how long it would take to replace it, or the extent of the setback.

“The science is moving forward so it’s difficult to put a precise time delay on how quickly in the future we would be able to realise the understanding that the OCO would have given us,” he said.

Although the mission was Nasa’s first to monitor carbon dioxide from space, it was not the first: Japan launched a similar one last month.

It will help scientists to measure the density of carbon dioxide and methane from almost the entire surface of the Earth, according to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

A Japanese-made H-2A rocket carrying the country’s Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite blasted off successfully from Tanegashima, a small island off southern Japan.

The satellite is collecting data from 56,000 locations around the world, a dramatic improvement on the 282 observation points available as of last October.

Japan hopes that the mission will provide governments with useful data as they come under pressure to meet their Kyoto treaty goals of cutting so-called greenhouse gas emissions.

Nasa’s problems

— The $1 billion Mars Observer was launched in 1992 to study the planet’s terrain and climate. Three days before its scheduled orbital entry, communications inexplicably and permanently stopped. Its current location is unknown

— In 1998 confused subcontracted engineers at Lockheed Martin used imperial units of measurement instead of the metric system Nasa intended, and sent the Mars Climate Orbiter vehicle, launched by a Delta rocket, right, into a low-altitude orbit, where it was torn apart by atmospheric stresses

— When Nasa’s Genesis capsule returned to Earth with samples of solar wind in 2004, its parachute failed to open and it crashed into the Utah desert. Investigators later found that its deceleration sensors were installed backwards

— In 1987 an Atlas-Centaur rocket was hit by lightning moments after launch. It spun out of control and had to be destroyed

— After nearly two decades of development, the Hubble Space Telescope was launched in 1990. Only then did scientists realise that its mirror was flawed. It was repaired in space in 1993

— Seven died in 1986 when a failed booster engine caused the Shuttle Challenger to break apart 73 seconds after launch

— In 1970 an explosion in Apollo 13’s fuel cells cut oxygen and water reserves to a critical level. A rescue mission brought Apollo 13 back to Earth three days later