The launch of an unmanned Delta 2 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California was cancelled less than one minute before liftoff early Tuesday when the launch pad's water system failed. The rocket, built and flown by United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Lockheed Martin Corporation and Boeing Company, was scheduled to lift off at 2:56 a.m. local time (0956 GMT) from a launch pad that had not been used in almost three years. The pad's water system is necessary in case of a fire and also to help suppress potentially damaging acoustic vibrations from a launch. The rocket caries the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA's) $465 million Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO-2). Built by Orbital Sciences Corporation, it is designed to measure where carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas tied to global warming, is moving into and out of the atmosphere. Mission controllers had only 30 seconds to launch the rocket off the pad to properly position the OCO-2 satellite at the front of a train of polar-orbiting spacecraft that passes over the equator at the same time every day. "As we only have a 30-second launch window, launch will not be occurring this morning," said NASA launch commentator George Diller. The launch was tentatively re-scheduled for Wednesday, but engineers first must determine the cause of the water-system problem, Diller said.
