Seven years' work on satellite crashes and burns in 12 minutes

Published on Tuesday 24 February 2009 21:48

A TEAM of scientists at a Scottish university watched in horror as a Nasa project on which they had worked for seven years crashed just minutes after its launch.

Dr Paul Palmer, of the University of Edinburgh's School of GeoSciences, is part of a global team of scientists who have developed ways to interpret satellite greenhouse gases data from space. But the Orbiting Carbon Observatory, which cost $273 million to develop, ran into problems about eight minutes into the mission and minutes later crashed into the ocean.

Dr Palmer last night told The Scotsman: "A few of us were watching Nasa TV online at work this morning.

"We watched the countdown and the launch," he said. "Then about eight to nine minutes into the launch they mentioned there was a "contingency", meaning that it hadn't launched properly.

"I felt gobsmacked," he said. "It looked like it was going up and all would be well. We were all gutted at what happened. This has been a very gloomy day for us. There are people who have worked for seven years on this project and we are uncertain about what will happen next.

"The Nasa press conference said they didn't know if they could rebuild it, so it is too early for us to know if it will go ahead."

However, Dr Palmer added: "Despite what has happened, all is not lost. We are also involved in the Japanese project which launched in early February and which is going to measure ."

An investigation was under way at Nasa last night into the crash of the space mission whose aim was to map the Earth's greenhouse gases for the first time.

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO), built by Nasa and launched atop a commercially built rocket, was to have orbited 438 miles above the planet, taking eight million measurements every 16 days to assess levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and determine mankind's impact on global warming.

Instead, it nosedived into a watery grave on the outskirts of Antarctica after part of the rocket failed to separate properly about 12 minutes after lift-off from Vandenberg air force base in California.

Officials at Nasa, which developed and funded the satellite project, and the Virginia-based Orbital Sciences Corporation, which built the Taurus XL rocket, were poring over the launch data to determine the exact cause.

The OCO was the first satellite built by Nasa ever to measure climate change on a global scale.