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Vandenberg satellite fails to reach orbit

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA lost a $424 million climate satellite Friday after a rocket mishap six minutes after launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.

The protective nosecone of the Orbital Sciences Corp. Taurus XL rocket failed to separate as expected three minutes after launch, preventing the satellite from reaching orbit after its 2:09 a.m. Pacific time launch from the West Coast. Weighed down by the fairing, the spacecraft fell into the southern Pacific Ocean.

The mission was aimed at gaining a better understanding of how the sun and tiny atmospheric particles affect Earth’s climate.

The mission, being managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Md., and Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Services Program here, originally was scheduled to launch Feb. 23. A problem with ground support equipment forced a delay.

The same failure doomed another NASA climate satellite, the $273 million Orbiting Carbon Observatory, on Feb. 24, 2009. That was the Launch Services Program’s first failure since its formation in 1998; this is the second.

NASA has begun the process of creating a Mishap Investigation Board to evaluate the cause of the failure.