WALLOP ISLAND, Va., July 2 (UPI) -- NASA's engineers had roughly 19 seconds of excitement in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, as the agency's Terrier-Improved Malemute sounding rocket appeared to successfully blast off from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility. But after less than a third of a minute of hang time, the rocket fell back toward Earth and walloped into the Atlantic Ocean.
"Range controllers detected a flight anomaly with the second stage Improved Malemute motor," NASA officials said in a press release Tuesday morning. In other words: a problem was detected.