Sad News For NASA Mission

NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory launched from Vanderberg Air Force Base at 1:55 AM local time, but as it headed its orbital path intended to study Earth's atmosphere, the shroud (a hard casing that protected the instrument during launch) failed to separate. This caused the satellite to crash into the Pacific Ocean near Antarctica. This 8 year project had an estimated cost of $278 million. NASA's press release is available at this link.
It's always interesting to me that when a spacecraft launches/lands/arrives successfully, NASA releases very exciting headlines. See this release from January 2004, when Spirit arrived on Mars. But when a mission goes badly, they come up with the most boring headline ever, as if they would prefer that you skip right over it. If you read the link I posted above for this most recent press release, you'll see that it avoids colorful terms like "crash," or "ruined;" it simply "failed to reach orbit." However, this Reuters release isn't nearly as circumspect; look for phrases like "dooming the mission" and "botched satellite launch." In the end, I guess NASA is only human.
Also, if you're the kind of person who thinks NASA is a huge waste of taxpayers' dollars and this is just one of many examples of that, now's the time to post your rant in the comments section. If you disagree, please feel free to say so as well. (Let's keep it civil, please.)

R.I.P.
Orbiting Carbon Observatory