spacetoday.net: Glory launch postponed to March

Posted: Fri, Feb 25, 2011, 7:16 AM ET (1216 GMT)
Glory illustration (NASA)

NASA has pushed back the launch of a climate satellite until next month to work out problems that caused a launch scrub earlier this week. NASA set no launch date for the Glory spacecraft on a Taurus XL rocket, but officials said they were evaluating possibilities in early or mid March. Glory was scheduled to launch Wednesday morning from Vandenberg Air Force Base, but the launch was scrubbed when a ground control system received erroneous signals. NASA originally delayed the launch one day, and then two, while troubleshooting the problem, but pushed the launch back further in order to better understand and resolve the problem. The Glory spacecraft will track aerosols in the atmosphere as well as solar irradiance to understand how they influence the Earth's climate.