At the NASA press conference after today's unsuccessful attempt to launch the Taurus XL carrier with three CubeSats the responsible teams discussed the cause of the rocket's aerodynamic cover failure. The fairing, which protects the probes during launch and ascent, underwent a redesign of the separation mechanism after a similar failure two years ago. The new system has already been successfully used several times in other launches.
NASA's launch director Omar Baez said that the countdown and the flight itself went smoothly until the moment when the data about the separation of the fairing from the launch vehicle should have come.
The data will be analyzed again in detail - the teams hope to understand what caused the failure of the mechanism and to determine the location in the South Pacific Ocean where the spacecraft landed after the failed attempt.
For us, this means that we can expect the next news from orbit only on April 12, 2011, when Arissat-1 will be activated for an as yet unspecified time, waiting to be launched on board the ISS.
For those interested in more details, the NASA project page is available:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/Glory/main/index.html