A rocket carrying a NASA Earth-observation satellite plummeted into the Pacific Ocean, after a failed launch attempt last week.
NASA’s $424 m Glory satellite failed to make orbit when a protective cover failed to eject, making the device too slow to make it into orbit.
A weather satellite launched by NASA two years ago suffered a similar fate.
NASA launch director, Omar Baez, said: "All indications are that the satellite and rocket are in the southern Pacific Ocean.”
Glory was designed to monitor tiny particles in the Earth’s atmosphere, called aerosols, in the hope of determining how they affect the planet’s weather.
The satellite also had instruments that measured variations in the amount of solar energy striking the highest regions of the Earth’s atmosphere.
NASA has already set up a board to investigate the mishap. The next NASA Earth sciences launch on a Taurus rocket is scheduled for 2013, but the space agency can still change launch vehicles if the Taurus proves unreliable.
