It was a nightmare for NASA on Tuesday, when its Orbiting Carbon Observatory satellite, which was designed to measure carbon dioxide levels around the Earth, failed to reach orbit. The fiasco of $280 million mission was a major setback to the space agency.

The NASA satellite — the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO), which took off from Vandenberg Air Force Base, around 4:55 a.m. Tuesday, failed due to an equipment malfunction.

According to NASA, the reason of the failure appeared to be the satellite failing to separate from its Taurus XL launch vehicle, which resulted in crashing the satellite in the Pacific Ocean near Antarctica. NASA officials clarified that the rocked was powered by hydrazine fuel that would not pose any risks to humans.

The space agency also stated that it would immediately put a team of investigators into action to find out the exact cause of the failure, while its multiple rounds of tests indicated that the satellite and booster were ready for launch.

Calling the fiasco, a big setback to the space agency’s already weak network for monitoring Earth and its environment from above, the science adviser during former President Bill Clinton's administration, Neal Lane said, "It's definitely a setback. We were already well behind. The program was weak and now it's really weak."

Ruth DeFries, a Columbia University professor who was part of the National Academy study team, said, "It's very unfortunate that it happened just at this time when we trying to get Earth observations back on track.”

John Logsdon, a space policy expert at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, voiced that it happed at the time when the agency was already facing a lot of criticism. John Logsdon said, "It comes at a particularly bad time for NASA, in terms of its uncertainty about the direction where it wants to go.”

However, if the launch had been successful, the OCO satellite would have helped scientists in measuring the carbon dioxide around the planet. It would have helped scientists to track the “coming and going” of CO2 in the atmosphere and would have helped the researchers better understand that the factors contributing to the global warming.