Fail

NASA Rocket Crashes in the Pacific

Didn’t drop protective casing in time to reach orbit.

NASA is out $424 million after one of its Earth-observation rockets failed to reach orbit and crashed into the Pacific Ocean early Friday morning. The rocket, named Glory, was launched at around 2:10 a.m. for a three-year mission to study how airborne particles affect the Earth’s atmosphere. But the rocket did not separate from its protective shell as it should have about three minutes after the launch, meaning it couldn’t muster the velocity it needed to reach orbit. It’s not the first time NASA has had problems with rockets designed to study global warming: Two years ago, a satellite crashed into the ocean near Antarctica after launching from the same type of rocket. A duplicate of the Glory is scheduled for launch in 2013.