Hermes was an American

satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioisotope ...

which was to have been operated by the

Colorado Space Grant Consortium The space-grant colleges are educational institutions in the United States that comprise a network of fifty-two consortia formed for the purpose of outer space-related research. Each consortium is based in one of the fifty states, the District of ...

. Intended to perform technology demonstration experiments in

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never mor ...

, it was lost during launch in March 2011 when the rocket that was carrying it failed to achieve orbit. Hermes was a single-unit

CubeSat A CubeSat is a class of miniaturized satellite based around a form factor consisting of cubes. CubeSats have a mass of no more than per unit, and often use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components for their electronics and structure. CubeSats ...

picosatellite A small satellite, miniaturized satellite, or smallsat is a satellite of low mass and size, usually under . While all such satellites can be referred to as "small", different classifications are used to categorize them based on mass. Satellites ca ...

which was primarily designed to test communications systems for future satellites. It was intended to test a new system which would allow data to be transferred at a higher rate than on previous satellites, thereby enabling future missions to return more data from scientific experiments or images. A secondary objective was to have seen tests performed upon the satellite bus, which was to have served as the basis for future COSGC missions. The satellite would also have returned data on the temperature and magnetic field of its surroundings. Hermes was launched by

Orbital Sciences Corporation Orbital Sciences Corporation (commonly referred to as Orbital) was an American company specializing in the design, manufacture, and launch of small- and medium- class space and launch vehicle systems for commercial, military and other governmen ...

using a Taurus-XL 3110

carrier rocket A launch vehicle or carrier rocket is a rocket designed to carry a payload (spacecraft or satellites) from the Earth's surface to outer space. Most launch vehicles operate from a launch pad, launch pads, supported by a missile launch contro ...

flying from Launch Complex 576E at the

Vandenberg Air Force Base Vandenberg may refer to: * Vandenberg (surname), including a list of people with the name * USS General Harry Taylor (AP-145), USNS ''General Hoyt S. Vandenberg'' (T-AGM-10), transport ship in the United States Navy, sank as an artificial reef in K ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. It was a secondary payload on the launch, with the primary payload being the

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

Glory spacecraft. The KySat-1 and Explorer-1 rime satellites were launched aboard the same rocket. The launch took place at 10:09:43 UTC on 4 March 2011, and ended in failure after the

payload fairing A payload fairing is a nose cone used to protect a spacecraft payload against the impact of dynamic pressure and aerodynamic heating during launch through an atmosphere. An additional function on some flights is to maintain the cleanroom environm ...

failed to separate from around the spacecraft just under three minutes after launch. With the fairing still attached the rocket had too much mass to achieve orbit, and reentered over the southern

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

or the

Antarctic The Antarctic ( or , American English also or ; commonly ) is a polar region around Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antarctic comprises the continent of Antarctica, the Kerguelen Plateau and other ...

. It was the second consecutive failure of a Taurus rocket, following the loss of the

Orbiting Carbon Observatory The Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) is a NASA satellite mission intended to provide global space-based observations of atmospheric carbon dioxide (). The original spacecraft was lost in a launch failure on 24 February 2009, when the payload f ...

in 2009.

References

Spacecraft launched in 2011 CubeSats Satellite launch failures Student satellites Picosatellites {{US-spacecraft-stub