Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Goodbye Glory

On march the 4th NASA's satellite Glory crashed into the Pacific Ocean. Glory was meant to collect various data of aerosols (smoke, air pollution etc.) and would have also collected irradiance information for climate study, water and energy cycles etc...
The crash was due to the Glory's launch vehicle Taurus XL which malfunctioned during the flight. Too bad, the costs were estimated to be close to 500 million US dollars. Half a billion. Poor taxpayers.

Anyway, RIP Glory, you would've served well!


Artist's impression of Glory in the space.












The launch. When everything seemed fine.












On the ground.
















Twitter - Twitter of Glory program.
Wiki - Wiki of Glory satellite.
NASA - Official web page of the program.

3 comments:

  1. SiphilMarch 8, 2011 at 7:46 AM

    That's too bad but, it's pretty cool to be in a generation that is around to see these old instruments come down, and see how much progress that has been made since we first started our space exploration. And be able to see these new ones, like the Keplar, get sent up. Although it will be sad to see the Hubble come down.

    ReplyDelete
  2. akraterMarch 8, 2011 at 12:52 PM

    Wonder how long it'll take to refund and launch another.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Patti D.March 9, 2011 at 4:06 AM

    what a shame, what a waste!

    ReplyDelete

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