Payload fairing

Failure of the fairing to separate in these cases may cause the craft to fail to reach orbit, due to the extra mass.

The Augmented Target Docking Adapter, to be used for the Gemini 9A crewed mission, was successfully placed into orbit by an Atlas SLV-3 in June 1966.

But when the Gemini crew rendezvoused with it, they discovered the fairing had failed to open and separate, making docking impossible.

In the 90's issues with payload fairing had caused numerous failures of the Long March 2E launch vehicle.

[9] On February 24, 2009, NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory satellite failed to reach orbit after liftoff; the agency concluded that the fairing on the Taurus XL launch vehicle failed to separate, causing the vehicle to retain too much mass and subsequently fall back to Earth and land in the Indian Ocean near Antarctica.

[14] NASA subsequently decided to switch the launch vehicle for the Orbiting Carbon Observatory's replacement, OCO-2, from a Taurus to a Delta II rocket.

A day after launching, iSpace revealed that the payload fairing had failed to separate properly, resulting in the single satellite being unable to reach its intended orbit.