Since 2009, NASA has funded and built two climate satellites that promised to obtain data on the ever-changing Earth climate. However, both spacecrafts now reside somewhere off the coast of California on the ocean floor due to similar flight mishaps. The failure of the March 4th and February 25th, 2009, missions total a $700 million setback for NASA and a great loss of data for the climate research community.

The most recent satellite expense, Glory, was intended to monitor the intensity of solar energy reaching the Earth’s upper atmosphere and measure atmospheric particles that disperse incoming solar radiation. Identifying which aerosols are natural and which are anthropogenic is critical for enhancing climate model accuracy.

Glory would help identify the anthropogenic contribution by offering a complete account of the aerosol types in different parts of the atmosphere. In instances where black carbon is found in close proximity to certain types of organic carbon aerosols, wildfires would be the natural cause of the aerosols. In contrast, if ozone is near the black carbon then anthropogenic causes are more likely.

Prof. Natalie Mahowald, earth and atmospheric sciences, who was recently featured in The New York Times for her work on desert dust researches the interaction between aerosols and biochemistry of the Earth’s climate. She is disappointed in Glory’s failed launch. 

“It is quite disappointing that the satellite didn't launch. Since aerosols can absorb and scatter in the short and long wave, they can either warm or cool the climate,” said Mahowald. “Climate scientists need detailed information about aerosols to determine when and where they are warming and cooling the climate, to understand how they are impacting climate. [Glory] would have provided this type of information. This will really set back the US aerosol remote sensing science.”

On March 4, the Glor satellite failed to launch, taking off atop a Taurus XL rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Approximately three minutes into launch, the fairing, or protective nose cone, protecting Glory failed to separate from the Taurus XL rocket, causing the satellite attached to the rocket to fall crashing back into the southern Pacific Ocean.

This sequence of events that led to the crash are parallel to the events that preceded on February of 2009, when NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory launched with a Taurus XL rocket and also failed to make it into orbit. OCO planned to orbit Earth and monitor global carbon dioxide emissions.

Orbital Sciences Corporation, which operates the Taurus XL rocket, said the company made drastic changes since the failed fairing of the OCO back in 2009.

“We went so far as to completely change out the initiation system and in the intervening years that system flew three times,” Orbital Sciences’ executive vice president, Ronald Grabe, said during the news conference addressing the crash. "We went into this flight really feeling that we had nailed the fairing issue."

As of now, NASA has not yet decided on future plans for a replacement of Glory said NASA spokesman Steve Cole. “Based on what happened with OCO two years ago, it will take many months to make a decision as to which path to pursue," Cole said.

Cole believed that the failure of Glory might provide setback to the deployment OCO 2, which was planned to launch in 2013 and replicate the intended data from the original OCO.

In an era where climate data and research is the future of science, both of these failed endeavors will pose a setback to the scientific community.