The European Space Agency has confirmed that its ice mission, Cryosat, has been lost off the Russian coast. The satellite fell into the Arctic Ocean minutes after lift-off from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia. The £90m (135m euro) craft was designed to monitor how the Earth's ice masses are responding to climate change. Scientists said the crash was a "tragedy" and it would be years before they could launch a similar mission, even if more funding were available. "It is a very sad event for many scientists around Europe and also for the teams involved in industry which built the satellite," said Volker Liebig, director of Earth observation programmes at Esa. Mark Drinkwater, Cryosat mission scientist, said it would be a long time before a similar mission could be mounted. "I feel extremely sorry for the teams of scientists who have staked whole careers on preparing experiments," he said.

British scientist, Duncan Wingham, of University College London, UK, proposed the mission seven years ago. He said there was no other satellite in Europe or America that could do its job. "Space is a risky business, it always has been; it doesn't always go perfectly," he told the BBC News website. "We just have to think about where we go from today." Esa's member states will make a decision in December on how much money to contribute to Earth observation projects.

View: Full Article | Source: BBC News

which scientist was drinking a bottle of dr. Pepper during this? hm? hm? hm!?

this is pretty skanky, but they should have made pre-cautions against this - if possible - because they should have realised it could all go haywire. like it has done.

I guess I dont understand what your saying. These rockets are gone over numerous times on the ground. but some times STUFF happened . This is the second satellite launch to have failed of this type. And it hurts the Russian's dependability for launching scientific and commercial satellites.

I am wondering if the computer programs between the new and older rocket stages may have had an interface problem. It's in pieces now so it will be hard to tell what went wrong and so may happen again in future launches.

To keep up on the space program's of all the different countries and space probes go to the U.M. sister sight WWW.spaceflightnews.com . Waspi and Saruman do an excellent job of keeping up with current events of Space.

heh, i was reffering to the dr pepper phrase 'whats the worst that can happen'

That shows you how much TV I watch. I never heard it. Commercial comes on , I am in the Refrigerator.

Got to admit the satalite made a nice light show comming down.

haha, fire pretty, tree's tall.

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!! that is soo funny, but once, MIR fell out of the sky. scary stuff, but thats funny

What a loss of money.

Sadly that is true but then again everything in life has some risk attached and you just have to deal with it the best you can.
I feel so sorry for all those scientists who spent all that time and effort preparing for this mission and then having it taken away in just a matter of seconds!