Taurus
Drops Two Satellites into Indian Ocean
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A Taurus rocket
was unsuccessfully launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base,
SLC-576E launch pad, at 1849 UTC (11:49 a.m. PDT) on September 21.
The rocket carried OrbView 4, QuikTOMS and Celestis 04.
At 85 seconds
into launch, when the spent stage was jettisoned and the second
stage Orion 50S motor ignited, the rocket suddenly veered to the
left and then to the right. The gyrations continued for several
seconds before the rocket appeared to regain control. OrbView-4
was released from the rocket's upper stage about 12 minutes after
liftoff, followed two minutes later by deployment of NASA's
QuikTOMS ozone monitoring spacecraft. The energy and momentum lost
while the rocket was gyrating meant the rocket was unable to
achieve the proper altitude and velocity to place the satellites
into an orbit around Earth. The two satellites plunged back into
the atmosphere, impacting into the Indian Ocean. Orbital is
convening an investigation team to determine what caused the
failure. NASA has been invited to lend its expertise, as an
observer.
OrbView
4's imaging instrument was to provide one-meter panchromatic
imagery and four-meter multispectral imagery with a swath width of
8 km as well as 200 channel hyperspectral imagery  with
a swath width of 5 km. The satellite would have revisited each
location on Earth in less than three days with an ability to turn
from side-to-side up to 45 degrees from a polar orbital path.
Anchor customers would have been able to downlink imagery directly
from the satellite, order imagery online or purchase products from
regional distributors. The spacecraft was designed, built and
launched by Orbital. The 355 kg (782 lbm) OrbView 4 spacecraft was
to have been delivered into a Sun-synchronous orbit approximately
470 km (254 nmi) above the Earth. Orbital Sciences built the
spacecraft for OrbImage, based on a Pegastar bus. The satellite
was to have a design life of five years. OrbView-4 was insured in
case of a launch failure.
QuikTOMS (Quick
Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer - TOMS), was to monitor global
ozone levels, sulfur dioxide, ash, smoke from fires,  and
ultraviolet radiation reaching the Earth's surface. The Taurus
rocket was to have deployed the 168 kg (370 lbm) QuikTOMS
satellite into a 470 km (254 nmi) Sun-synchronous orbit. The
satellite's onboard propulsion system was then to have boosted the
QuikTOMS spacecraft into its final 800 km (432 nmi) orbit, 97.3°
inclination. The spacecraft was designed for a three year minimum
on-orbit mission lifetime, with consumables to support a five year
mission. Orbital Sciences built the satellite for NASA based on a
MicroStar bus.
 The
Taurus rocket was carrying a payload for Celestis, Inc., which was
not to separate from the rocket's final stage once it reached
orbit.
Taurus
is currently scheduled to
launch Taiwan’s ROCSAT 2 in 2003.
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