Vandenberg rocket launch visible from Ridgecrest, 3-4-2011

UPDATE: A rocket carrying an Earth-observation satellite plummeted into the Pacific Ocean after a failed launch attempt Friday, the second-straight blow to NASA's weakened environmental monitoring program.

NASA's Glory spacecraft launched on schedule this morning aboard an Orbital Sciences Taurus XL rocket.

Glory is a remote-sensing Earth-orbiting observatory designed to achieve two primary mission objectives. One is to collect data on the physical and chemical properties as well as the spatial and temporal distributions of aerosols. The other is to continue collection of total solar irradiance data for the long-term climate record.

"Glory" rocket launch as seen from Ridgecrest, CA. 3-4-2011 @ 2:09 am.

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News & Politics

Tags:

• vandenberg
• rocket
• glory
• failed
• launch
• space
• nasa
• ridgecrest
• california

[HighDesertNews]

In the last shot I thought it was going in a downward direction due to being so far down range, of course now we know it just went down.

[stealthnoodle12]

I heard that it was a failed launch. Is this true?

[HighDesertNews]

@stealthnoodle12 That's true. It failed to reach a high enough speed to make orbit due to a protective shield on the nose of the rocket that failed to detach at the 3 minute point into the launch, according to NASA.

[mojaverockets]

I saw the first three stages from way out in Oak Hills (near Hesperia). I thought it might have been too far down range for me to see the fourth final insertion motor.