The launch of a satellite to monitor global carbon dioxide emissions flopped within minutes of liftoff from a California air base Tuesday after the module failed to separate from the rocket, NASA said.
"It appears that there were problems separating" and the satellite "did not achieve orbit," said NASA TV announcer George Diller.
"We are still evaluating the status of the location and the exact state" of the spacecraft, Diller said.
"We have not had a successful launch tonight," he said.
It was unclear exactly why the mission failed or what happened to the rocket and the its load, NASA said. Agency officials have announced a press conference on the launch set for no earlier than 01300 GMT.
The satellite was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California aboard a Taurus XL rocket, at 1:55 am (0951 GMT), live images on NASA TV showed.
It was the first time NASA has used a Taurus rocket, built by Orbital Science Corp., the US space agency said in a statement posted Monday on its website.
"The liftoff was smooth," Jet Propulsion Laboratory spokesman Alan Buis told AFP. "It was pretty far along in the ascent" over the Pacific Ocean when the "contingency" was declared, Buis said, adding no further details.
The mission of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) was to map the global distribution of carbon dioxide and study how that distribution changes over time, NASA said in a statement.
Carbon dioxide is the leading greenhouse gas driving climate change.
Other than the verbal commentary during the launch there was little visual indication on NASA TV that the satellite had failed.
"Several minutes into the flight, launch managers declared a contingency when the fairing failed to separate properly," NASA said in a brief statement, refering to the satellite's protective shield.
It was NASA's first spacecraft dedicated to studying carbon dioxide, though not the first in orbit: on January 23 Japan launched the world's first satellite dedicated to monitoring greenhouse gas emissions.
The Japanese mission will help scientists measure the density of carbon dioxide and methane from almost the entire surface of the Earth, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said.
A Japanese-made H-2A rocket carrying the Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite (GOSAT) blasted off from Tanegashima, a small island in southern Japan.
The satellite is collecting data from 56,000 locations around the world, a dramatic increase from the 282 observation points available as of last October, JAXA said.
Japan hopes the mission will provide governments with useful data as they come under pressure to meet their 2008-2012 Kyoto Protocol goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
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