March 4th was supposed to mark a new day when Glory was to be launched into orbit to act as an environmental satellite for the use of atmospheric scientists. During the early hours of March 4th, NASA had launched the Glory satellite, which was onboard the Orbital Sciences Corp. Taurus XL rocket. It did not reach its orbit above the earth’s atmosphere due to difficulties with the proper function of the Taurus XL rocket.
In recent years the Orbital Sciences Corp. Taurus XL has encountered previous problems with their rockets. As recently as February 24th 2009, the Taurus XL suffered a nose cone fairing failure similar to the mission on March 4th. During the failure in February 2009, NASA lost $273 million, while this year marked a loss of $424 million to the Pacific Ocean. In the wake of the 2009 loss, Orbital Science had taken measures to redesign their system, replacing a hot-gas pressurization system with a more robust nitrogen system borrowed from the company's Minotaur rockets.
Initially, the March launch was delayed from an initial launch date of February 23rd due to difficulties with ground support equipment. During the March 4th failure, at approximately T+ 300 seconds Richard Haenke reported a vehicle speed error due to the lack of the fairing not separating. Since the fairing did not separate the rocket plunged to its demise since it was carrying extra weight, thus not able to attain optimal speed for the satellite to reach its orbit.
Total losses for NASA have topped $700 million with these two attempts.
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