Well, the bad news is that a NASA satellite launched this morning failed to reach orbit, and crashed into the water somewhere near Antarctica. The good news, I guess, is that the $278 million spent on the mission can help stimulate the economy? Oh, that money was already spent? Never mind. No good news.

Doubly unfun, the satellite was supposed to track carbon dioxide in the air, so it had an environmental purpose, and not a spy-on-Russia-and/or-China purpose. But, unfortunately, “a clamshell section that protects the satellite as it rises through the atmosphere failed to separate as commanded,” which made the satellite too heavy to obtain orbit, hurtling it back down towards Earth.

‘It’s a huge disappointment to the entire team that’s worked very hard over years and years and really did their best to see it through,’ said Charles P. Dovale, the launch manager. ‘The reason not everyone is able to do this is — it’s hard. And even when you do the best you can, you can still fail. It’s a tough business.’ [New York Times]

There is another climate-based satellite set to go up in June, but NASA will delay launch if they haven’t figured out what went wrong in today’s launch.

So that all isn’t great. Just for the record, the satellite that didn’t make it today sounded pretty awesome.

Scientists had hoped the new data, covering the entire planet, would help them improve climate models and better understand the ‘carbon sinks’ like oceans and forests and that absorb much of the carbon dioxide.

Well, damn. takepart to learn how you can lower your own carbon emissions.