NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory, a new satellite dedicated to
mapping Earth's carbon dioxide levels, crashed into the ocean
near Antarctica just after launch Tuesday when a shroud designed
to protect the spacecraft accidentally doomed its mission. "Our
whole team at a very personal level is disappointed in the
events of this morning," John Brunschwyler, the Taurus project
manager for the Dulles, Va.-based rocket manufacturer Orbital
Sciences, said in a somber post-launch briefing. "It's very
hard." The 972-pound (441-kilogram) OCO spacecraft was NASA's
first satellite built exclusively to map carbon dioxide levels
on Earth and understand how humanity's contribution of the
greenhouse gas is affecting global climate change. The satellite
carried a single three-channel spectrometer to make its detailed
measurements and was slated to launch into a near-polar, sun-
synchronous orbit that would fly about 438 miles (705
kilometers) above Earth. Brunschwyler said the first sign of
trouble came about three minutes a