Posted on 10/10/2005 4:02:11 PM PDT by neverdem
Space agencies are investigating why a rocket carrying a European mission to map polar ice fell into the ocean. The European Space Agency's Cryosat spacecraft was lost minutes after lift-off from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia on yesterday evening.
Russian officials say an error caused the rocket's second stage to run out of fuel, so it could not eject the probe. The £90m (135m euro) craft was designed to monitor how the Earth's ice masses are responding to climate change.
The Esa satellite was launched at 19.02 local time (16.02 BST), but mission controllers failed to make contact with the spacecraft as planned some two hours later.
Russian space officials said that both the spacecraft and the two top parts of its rocket had fallen into the Arctic Ocean, north of Greenland.
The satellite was launched on a Rockot vehicle - a converted SS-19 intercontinental ballistic missile. The rocket, which in the Cold War would have been armed with nuclear weapons, had been modified with the addition of a Breeze-KM upper stage.
The loss of Cryosat brings an uncertain future for the teams of scientists and engineers working on the mission.
Cryosat was to be the first in a series of Earth Explorer missions planned by Esa. The satellite missions are designed to be quicker and cheaper than their predecessor, Envisat, a giant earth-monitoring satellite which took more than a decade to build.
The second Earth Explorer, a satellite to measure the earth's gravitational field, is due to be launched on a Rockot vehicle next year.
The launcher had flown six successful missions before the loss of Cryosat, its first Esa payload, reported BBC News.
P.T.
Karma, perhaps? They were a bit too overly amused at US difficulties with the Hubble and a few other NASA-related incidents.
George Bush shot it down with a missle. I saw him do it and Carl Rove helped.
"George Bush shot it down with a missle. I saw him do it and Carl Rove helped."
You have been listening to Coast to Coast AM, haven't you? :-)
Gaia was angry at foolish myn's attempts at mensuration?
(Hey, I'm an engineer. What do I know?)
"Space agencies are investigating why a rocket carrying a European mission to map polar ice fell into the ocean"
Were they using the Russian Submarine Guidance software?
As far as unexplained abbreviations is the UR-100N / SS-19 STILLETO link in comment# 1, I've found PBV to mean Post-Boost Vehicle, and I'll hazard that terms like CEP of 0.3 nm means as far as accuracy is concerned, the warhead has a Circular Error of Probability expressed as a radius of 0.3 nautical miles from the target. Any corrections will be appreciated.
From time to time, I’ll ping on noteworthy articles about politics, foreign and military affairs. FReepmail me if you want on or off my list.
Speaking of Coast to Coast, Phil Hendrie's impersonations of Art Bell and his guests are priceless. (www.philhendrieshow.com).
Gravity? (Just a wild guess)
They wanted to crash the rocket into the ice and then measure how deep the hole is, thus determining global warming.
We went to the Moon with a TI-99 calculator as the onboard computer.
Engineers were running things then.
Bean counters run it now.
To be expected. This has caused NASA's failures too.
Put the Engineers back in charge.
Every profession has its place and should be utilized there.
Some you win---some you lose.
And some get rained out. Or down.
Hey, let's not bash engineers, I was just getting my self-esteem back! Are you talking the Wisdom of Gaia:
http://www.theosophy-nw.org/theosnw/science/sc-jvmj.htm
or Been playing too much Nintendo (Legends of Gaia)? LOL :)
Now somehow that makes sense! LOL
Who would trust any Russian aircraft or spacecraft! Don't they still have a few cosmonauts floating around in space along with the other debris they have left out there?
Obviously it is a ploy by big oil to hide global warming.
Thanks for the ping!
All that rocket fuel causes global warming. They were just trying to save energy.
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