Blast and Smoke

NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) blasted off from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base on Feb. 24th around 1:55 in the morning Pacific Time. An all-sky camera in nearby Santa Barbara captured the early stages of what would prove to be a doomed flight. You can see in this video the launch and after few seconds a blast and smoke.
"We photographed the launch using an AllSky-340C mounted on our roof," says Matt Thomas of Santa Barbara Instrument Group.Unfortunately, OCO never made it to Earth orbit. After the satellite left the field of view, above, it failed to separate from its Taurus XL launch vehicle. The stuck-together pair splashed down in the icy waters near Antarctica. Climate scientists are calling the loss a "serious setback" in their efforts to identify our planet's carbon sinks and solve the mystery of missing carbon --the 30% of human-produced carbon dioxide that disappears into unknown places. A NASA panel has been convened to investigate the mishap.