Wednesday’s launch of GPS IIF-4 will follow hard on the heels of the successful Atlas V 401 flight of SBIRS GEO-2 in March. Photo Credit: Julian Leek / Blue Sawtooth Studio

United Launch Alliance’s venerable Atlas V booster is set to roar aloft on 15 May on a mission to place the Global Positioning System (GPS) IIF-4 satellite into medium orbit, more than 11,000 miles above Earth. The new mission will keep the Navstar network of worldwide positioning, velocity and timing assets fully operational until the next-generation GPS Block IIIA comes online, sometime in 2014.

Liftoff of the Atlas V – which will fly in its “401” configuration, with a 4-meter-wide (13-foot) payload fairing, no strap-on rocket boosters and a single-engine Centaur upper stage – is scheduled to occur within a short “window”, extending from 5:38-5:56 p.m. EDT on Wednesday. Notably, this will be the first GPS launch aboard an Atlas in almost 28 years.

Processing of the Atlas and payload at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., continues to go well, and the vehicle is expected to be transferred to Space Launch Complex (SLC)-41 on Tuesday. The 401 configuration has already been used three times in 2013 to launch NASA’s latest Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS-K) in January, the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) in February and most recently the Space-Based Infrared System for Geosynchronous Orbit (SBIRS GEO-2) on 19 March. Since its maiden voyage in August 2002, the Atlas V has flown 37 times, with a near-perfect record. Its sole blemish was a Centaur upper stage glitch in June 2007, which produced a lower than intended orbit for its classified National Reconnaissance Office primary cargo. Capped-off by a bulbous, two-piece (“bisector”) payload shroud, the vehicle stands 19 stories tall.

Wednesday’s mission will mark the first time in almost 28 years that an Atlas has ferried a GPS satellite into orbit. The last occasion was on 9 October 1985, when an Atlas E/F rocket boosted the GPS I-11 payload into space from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. It is intended that the 12-satellite GPS IIF network will employ a mix of both Atlas V and Delta IV launches.

Since the mascot for the U.S. Air Force’s 45th Launch Support Squadron is an alligator, it made perfect sense for the squadron to design a GPS IIF-4 mission patch with him in pride of place. The mission itself is known as “Vega”, whose astronomical namesake resides in the constellation of Lyra (the Lyre)…hence the classical lyre in the gator’s grasp. Image Credit: SpaceFlightNow.com

The Atlas’ Russian-built RD-180 engine, with a propulsive yield of 860,000 pounds, will ignite about 2.7 seconds ahead of liftoff, burning liquid oxygen and a refined form of rocket-grade kerosene, known as “RP-1”. Climb-out from SLC-41 will commence at T+1.1 seconds and the pencil-like booster will climb vertically for about 16 seconds, after which the avionics of the Centaur will command a pitch, roll and yaw maneuver. This will establish the Atlas onto the proper flight azimuth of 45.8 degrees, following a north-easterly trajectory to insert the 3,600-pound GPS IIF-4 satellite into orbit. After the shutdown of the RD-180 at T+243 seconds, the 41-foot-long Centaur and attached payload will separate, preparatory to two “burns” to achieve a target 11,047-mile, 55-degree-inclined orbit.

Ignition of the Centaur’s 22,300-pound-thrust RL-10A engine for the first time will occur about ten seconds after the separation of the Atlas’ first stage. The engine employs cryogenic propellants of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen and is designed to be restartable in space. This first burn will be followed by the jettisoning of the two-piece payload fairing to expose GPS IIF-4 to the space environment for the first time. The first burn is expected to last about 13 minutes, after which the Centaur/payload combo will coast for almost three hours, ahead of a second burn, lasting just 1.5 minutes. Following the completion of this event, the Centaur will spin-up the payload to five revolutions per minute and release GPS IIF-4 at T+3 hours and 23 minutes.

Throughout the ascent phase, telemetry data will be gathered by the Eastern Range, together with various worldwide installations under the U.S. Air Force Space Control Network: New Boston Air Force Station, N.H., the Royal Air Force’s Oakhanger installation in Hampshire, England, Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, and Guam in the western Pacific Ocean. Additionally, NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite constellation will participate in the gathering of telemetry during the mission. From its semi-synchronous medium-altitude orbit, GPS IIF-4 will circle Earth once every 12 hours. It is expected to complete testing in August, after which it will be utilized as a “reserve” or “backup” satellite.

GPS IIF-3 – similar to the satellite scheduled for Wednesday’s mission – is pictured during ‘encapsulation’ within the two-piece payload fairing. Photo Credit: United Launch Alliance

This latest global-positioning asset will mark the fourth satellite in a 12-strong network of GPS IIF spacecraft, the first of which was boosted into orbit in May 2010. A second spacecraft flew in July 2011, followed by last October’s launch of GPS IIF-3 atop a Delta IV Medium rocket. The GPS IIF-4 payload arrived at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station from prime contractor Boeing’s Satellite Development Center in El Segundo, Calif., aboard a C-17 Globemaster III aircraft on 26 February 2013. The GPS IIF boasts improved positioning, velocity and timing accuracy, a reprogrammable processor, an interference-free civilian signal for commercial aviation search and rescue and a new Military code (or “M-code”) to offer better resistance to electronic jamming. “As each IIF satellite becomes operational, we continue the seamless transformation of the GPS constellation into an even more accurate, reliable and durable navigation resource for the US military and the global civilian user community,” said Craig Cooning, vice-president and general manager of Boeing Space & Intelligence Systems. “Our efficient pulse-line manufacturing process, adapted from Boeing’s commercial airplane production lines, also ensures that we deliver each spacecraft on time and on cost.”

In the meantime, the U.S. Air Force expects the next-generation GPS IIIA network to enter service from 2014. It awarded a $1.4 billion contract to Lockheed Martin in May 2008 to develop this new network, which may eventually comprise as many as 32 satellites, although the Air Force has only formally contracted for four of these. With 500 times the transmitter power of current systems, the IIIA satellites will benefit from improved navigational warfare capabilities, enabling them to shut off GPS services to limited geographical locations, whilst maintaining service to U.S. and allied forces. The GPS satellite system is operated and controlled by the 50th Space Wing, located at Schriever Air Force Base, CO.

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As part of the qualification process, the PhoneSat systems were tested on high-altitude balloon flights. Photo Credit: NASA

When Orbital Sciences’ Antares rocket roared into orbit Sunday, most eyes were focused on the performance of the new vehicle on its maiden voyage or on the deployment of an inert mass simulator for the Cygnus cargo ship. However, one set of payloads aboard the “A-ONE” mission received relatively little attention. They were quietly ejected from the second stage of Antares at 5:09 p.m. EDT, right on the edge of space, and nine minutes after the booster rocketed away from Pad 0A at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) on Wallops Island, Va.

Meet the PhoneSats.

Four tiny “picosatellites” were deployed from a small dispenser. One of them, known as Dove-1, is dedicated to amateur radio, but the others may prove to be the lowest-cost satellites ever flown into space. The PhoneSats—named Alexander, Graham, and Bell, in honor of the Scottish-born inventor of the world’s first practical telephone—are designed to determine if a consumer-grade smartphone can be used as the main flight avionics system for a capable, yet inexpensive, satellite. Since their launch Sunday, transmissions from all three PhoneSats have been received at multiple ground stations on Earth, indicating that they are functioning normally. They should remain in orbit for up to two weeks.

“Out-of-the-box smartphones already offer a wealth of capabilities needed for satellite systems,” noted NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, “including fast processors, versatile operating systems, multiple miniature sensors, high-resolution cameras, GPS receivers, and several radios.” Although NASA added other components, the cost of the PhoneSats was capped at $3,500 and the design and objectives were kept to a minimum for this first flight. To prepare for the A-ONE mission, the PhoneSat hardware was tested in various extreme environments, including thermal vacuum chambers, vibration and shock tables, suborbital rocket flights, and high-altitude balloons.

The three PhoneSats (Alexander, Graham, and Bell) were lofted in a payload dispenser aboard Orbital Sciences’ first Antares rocket. Photo Credit:Mark Usciak / AmericaSpace

“It’s always great to see a space technology mission make it to orbit,” said Michael Gazarik, NASA’s associate administrator for space technology in Washington, D.C. “The high frontier is the ultimate testing ground for new and innovative space technologies of the future. Smartphones offer a wealth of potential capabilities for flying small, low-cost, powerful satellites for atmospheric or Earth science, communications, or other space-borne applications. They also may open space to a whole new generation of commercial, academic, and citizen-space users.”

In addition to sending information about their health back to Earth, the PhoneSats will also attempt to take photographs of the Home Planet with their cameras. A “watchdog circuit” is monitoring their systems and can reboot the phones if they stop transmitting radio signals. The specific hardware is the Google-HTC Nexus One smartphone, running the Android operating system, to which NASA added a larger, external lithium-ion battery and a more powerful radio for messages transmitted from space.

The smartphone’s ability to send and receive calls and text messages has been disabled and is mounted in a “1U” CubeSat, with a capacity of 1 liter. Each CubeSat measures about 4-inches-square and weighs 2.4 pounds. Potential future applications for PhoneSat technology include advanced heliophysics—which NASA’s upcoming Edison Demonstration of Small Satellite Networks mission seeks to trial—as well as qualifying new technologies and components for spaceflight and conducting low-cost observations of Earth.

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The Orbital Sciences Antares rocket had its maiden flight from Wallops Island space center today on test mission A-ONE.

The NASA mission was designed to last just over 18 minutes and demonstrated Orbital and Wallops ability to launch a spacecraft into low earth orbit with enough mass to provide re-supply flights to the ISS.

Orbital Sciences Corporation successfully launched the first of its Antares rockets today from Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Photo Credit: Mark Usciak / AmericaSpace

WALLOPS ISLAND, Va — Orbital Sciences Corp. has successfully launched its Antares rocket on the long-delayed “A-ONE” test flight from Pad 0A at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) on Wallops Island, Va. Liftoff of the 133-foot-tall vehicle – the first cryogenically-propelled rocket ever built and flown by Orbital – occurred on time at 5:00:02 p.m. EDT, right at the start of the launch window. Antares’ beautiful ascent into the early evening sky has surely raised an unbearable weight from the shoulders of Orbital, whose next focus after this mission is to conduct a full-up demo of its Cygnus cargo ship to the International Space Station, possibly as soon as June.

This was the first launch of one of Orbital’s Antares launch vehicles. If all goes according to plan, the next flight of the rocket will send the company’s Cygnus spacecraft to the International Space Station. Photo Credit: Mark Usciak / AmericaSpace

The launch proved charmed with third-time-lucky fortune, as Orbital saw its baby finally fly. Two previous attempts were scrubbed due to technical and weather issues. On Wednesday, a data umbilical cable linking the Transporter Erector Launcher (TEL) to the rocket’s second stage prematurely disconnected and prompted a scrub, just 12 minutes ahead of the scheduled liftoff. A second attempt yesterday was also frustrated, not by a technical issue, but by unacceptable high-altitude winds. However, evaluations late last week placed the Orbital team in a position to attempt two back-to-back launch attempts on Saturday and also today, during a two-hour window which extended from 5:00-7:00 p.m.

Weather conditions at Wallops at dawn this morning seemed to show a marked improvement over yesterday and the A-ONE flight controllers received their “Call to Stations” at around 9:00 a.m. AmericaSpace’s Launch Tracker noted meteorologists’ predictions of an 80-percent probability of acceptable conditions at T-zero, with the main worry focused on a chance that surface winds could violate the launch attempt. However, balloon deployments during the early afternoon returned positive results, indicating that weather conditions and the range debris limits were both “Green”.By 2:00 p.m., the process of chilling-down the fuel lines of Antares’ first stage – which is powered by two Aerojet-built AJ-26 engines – with liquid nitrogen had begun, ahead of the fueling process. This hour-long ‘chill-down’ protocol, explained the Tracker, was designed to “prevent a shock to the equipment being hit by a rapid temperature change which could cause a catastrophic failure”. Finally, a little after 3:30 p.m., the A-ONE launch team was polled for its recommendation and returned a unanimous “Go” to march towards a liftoff at the opening of the window at 5:00 p.m. In the minutes which followed the “Go” call, the first propellants began flowing into the engines’ fuel lines. The AJ-26s – which can trace their heritage back to the Soviet Union’s ill-fated N-1 lunar rocket – are fed by a refined form of rocket-grade kerosene (known as “RP-1”) and liquid oxygen.

The loading process was critically timed to begin about 90 minutes ahead of the scheduled launch, because of time limits associated with the rapid boil-off of the cryogenic propellants. Shortly after the beginning of fueling, the A-ONE team refined the launch time to within a 15-minute block, between 5:00-5:15 p.m. “Extending beyond the 5:15 p.m. deadline will result in an automatic scrub for the day,” explained the Tracker. “The reduced timeframe is because of the boiling-off of the [liquid oxygen]…after the completion of the tanking…15 minutes beyond the planned T-zero will result in too much LOX boiling-off to launch safely to the desired orbit.” During the fueling process, a helicopter spotted a fishing boat within the launch danger zone, but by 4:10 p.m. it had been escorted away.

Antares and the Transporter Erector Launcher (TEL) are clearly visible in this image. Photo Credit: NASA

The final polling of the launch team occurred in a two-step process, beginning shortly after 4:30 p.m., with the first confirmation of “Green across all stations”. At the same time, out at Pad 0A – as the effects of liquid oxygen boil-off became apparent, almost concealing Antares’ name at one stage – the final chill-down of the AJ-26 engines got underway to condition them for the ignition sequence. The 75-minute-long fueling process concluded at 4:45 p.m., with propellants at flight-ready levels, and at 4:48 p.m. the final “Go for Launch” was received from the A-ONE teams. Antares’ primary payload – a mass simulator for the Cygnus cargo craft – was transferred to internal power and at 4:51 p.m. the Transporter Erector Launcher (TEL) was armed to enable it to execute a rapid retraction from the vehicle the moment of liftoff. Five minutes before launch, the Flight Termination System was activated, enabling the ordnance which would destroy Antares in the event of a major malfunction or an off-nominal situation.

At 4:56:30 p.m. – when the clock reached T-3 minutes and 30 seconds – the ‘terminal count’ got underway, with the transfer of command to Antares’ autosequencer, which assumed primary control of all vehicle critical functions. Ignition of the twin AJ-26 engines commenced at T-2 seconds, with computer-controlled health checks conducted as they ramped up to full power. Each of these powerplants produces a sea-level thrust of 338,000 pounds and liftoff occurred at 5:00:02 p.m., with Antares clearing the tower five seconds later. Watched by several hundred spectators – including representatives of AmericaSpace – the vehicle immediately commenced a pitch and roll program maneuver, which established it onto the proper flight azimuth of 107.8 degrees.

Within 80 seconds, Antares passed through the period of maximum aerodynamic turbulence (nicknamed “Max Q”) and the AJ-26 engines continued to burn hot and hard, finally shutting down – as planned – a little under four minutes after launch. At 5:03:55 p.m., having reached an altitude of 66 miles, the first stage separated, and the vehicle coasted for almost two minutes, before the jettisoning of the bullet-like payload shroud at 5:05:19 p.m. and ignition of the solid-fueled Castor-30A second-stage engine at 5:05:28 p.m. The Castor engine, built by Alliant TechSystems, produced a thrust of 89,000 pounds and burned for two and a half minutes, providing the final impulse to inject the Cygnus mass simulator into a low-Earth orbit of 155-186 miles, inclined 51.6 degrees to the equator. A quartet of tiny picosatellites – three provided by NASA’s Ames Research Center of Moffett Field, Calif., to demonstrate the use of smartphones for CubeSat avionics, and an amateur-radio satellite – were deployed from a dispenser at 5:09 p.m.

The final key event for A-ONE occurred triumphantly at 5:10:03 p.m., when the 16.5-foot-long Cygnus mass simulator itself separated smoothly from the second stage and entered free flight. Equipped with instrumentation to gather data on the launch, ascent and orbital flight environments, the 8,400-pound simulator serves as a precursor to the demo mission of a ‘real’ Cygnus to the International Space Station, later this summer.

“Today’s successful test marks another significant milestone in NASA’s plan to rely on American companies to launch supplies and astronauts to the International Space Station, bringing this important work back to the United States where it belongs,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. “Congratulations to Orbital Sciences and the NASA team that worked alongside them for the picture-perfect launch of the Antares rocket. In addition to providing further evidence that our strategic space exploration plan is moving forward, this test also inaugurates America’s newest spaceport capable of launching to the space station, opening up additional opportunities for commercial and government users.”

This Antares carried a mass simulatoof the Cygnus spacecraft. Photo Credit: Mark Usciak / AmericaSpace

As described in AmericaSpace’s A-ONE preview article, the first flight of this new rocket has come at the end of a long and difficult road for Orbital Sciences, the Dulles, Va.-based aerospace company, which in December 2008 won a $1.9 billion slice of NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) pie. The provisions of this contract require Orbital to transport upwards of 44,000 pounds of equipment, payloads and supplies to the International Space Station aboard eight missions of its Antares-boosted Cygnus cargo craft by 2016. However, efforts to configure the MARS site on Wallops Island for Antares operations have been mired with technical difficulty. As part of the redevelopment of the site, Pad 0A was completely demolished and a new complex was assembled with kerosene and liquid oxygen tankage for Antares. Problems with the cryogenic handling equipment and the completion of MARS conspired to delay the A-ONE mission by over a year.

However, today’s spectacular launch – nominal in all respects – may still place the company in a strong position to attempt an inaugural demo of the Cygnus craft to the space station “around mid-year”, with AmericaSpace’s Launch Tracker noting “late June or early July” for the mission. It will deliver 800 pounds of equipment and supplies to the sprawling international outpost. That flight will follow a rendezvous profile not dissimilar to the one followed by CRS competitor SpaceX’s Dragon ships: completing a series of incremental steps, over a two-day period, to bring it within range of the station’s 57-foot-long Canadarm2 robotic arm for grappling and berthing onto the Harmony node. Orbital’s current manifest shows an ambitious 2013 schedule for Antares: following the A-ONE launch, the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) demo to the space station will occur in the summer, with the first dedicated CRS mission tentatively slated for September and, perhaps, CRS-2 in December.

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The launch countdown was proceeding according to schedule with just a few minutes remaining before launch when the problem cropped up. Photo Credit: Bennett Scarborough

Two days after a disappointing scrub, late in the countdown for its “A-ONE” maiden voyage, the Antares booster stands ready for a second launch attempt from Pad 0A at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) on Wallops Island, Va., at the weekend. On Wednesday afternoon, at 4:48 p.m. EDT – a mere 12 minutes ahead of the scheduled liftoff time – Orbital Sciences Corp. flight controllers scrubbed the attempt after a data umbilical linking the Transporter Erector Launcher (TEL) to the rocket’s second stage had prematurely disconnected. Orbital’s Executive Vice President Frank Culbertson, who serves as Mission Director for the A-ONE flight, described the issue as “fairly straightforward” to resolve and engineers are presently pushing towards Saturday 20 April at 5:00 p.m. for the next attempt.

Investigations after the scrub indicated that two factors were to blame for the premature disconnect: a slight hydraulic movement in the TEL and insufficient slack in the umbilical itself to allow for this movement. “Neither issue alone would have caused the umbilical disconnect,” Orbital explained on its website, but added that “the combination resulted in the anomaly.” Yesterday afternoon (Thursday), the Mission Management Team – led by Culbertson, a former astronaut – met to evaluate predicted poor weather forecasts on 19 April and optimum schedules to provide for a sufficiently rested workforce in time for two back-to-back launch attempts on Saturday and, if necessary, Sunday 21 April. Weather conditions at Wallops, which remained at less than 50-percent-acceptable for most of Wednesday’s countdown, are expected to improve by the weekend.

“The good news is that this is a simple adjustment to the external support systems,” said Culbertson. “Given that this is a first run for the rocket and the first-time use of a new launch facility, the fact that all systems were performing as planned while the team proceeded through the pre-launch checklists is very encouraging. It speaks volumes about the quality of the work done by this team and our partners.”

Space shuttle veteran and Executive Vice President and General Manager of Orbital’s Advanced Programs Group Frank Culbertson addresses members of the media at a press conference held prior to Wednesday’s planned launch of an Antares launch vehicle from Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Photo Credit: Mark Usciak / AmericaSpace

As described in AmericaSpace’s A-ONE preview article, the first flight of this new rocket will come at the end of a long and difficult road for Orbital Sciences, the Dulles, Va.-based aerospace company, which in December 2008 won a $1.9 billion slice of NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) pie. The provisions of this contract require Orbital to transport upwards of 44,000 pounds of equipment, payloads and supplies to the International Space Station aboard eight missions of its Antares-boosted Cygnus cargo craft by 2016. However, efforts to configure the MARS site on Wallops Island for Antares operations have been mired with technical difficulty. As part of the redevelopment of the site, Pad 0A was completely demolished and a new complex was assembled with kerosene and liquid oxygen tankage for Antares, which is Orbital’s first cryogenically-powered rocket. Problems with the cryogenic handling equipment and the completion of MARS have already conspired to delay the A-ONE mission by over a year.

Orbital remains upbeat about the situation, however, and a successful launch of A-ONE on Saturday may still place the company in a strong position to attempt an inaugural demo mission of the Cygnus craft to the space station “around mid-year”, with June apparently the preferred month. That flight will follow a rendezvous profile not dissimilar to the one followed by CRS competitor SpaceX’s Dragon ships: completing a series of incremental steps, over a two-day period, to bring it within range of the station’s 57-foot-long Canadarm2 robotic arm for grappling and berthing onto the Harmony node. Orbital’s current manifest shows an ambitious 2013 schedule for Antares: following the A-ONE launch, the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) demo to the space station will occur in the summer, with the first dedicated CRS mission tentatively slated for September and, perhaps, CRS-2 in December.

Orbital’s first Antares rocket is raised to the vertical position by the Transporter Erector Launcher (TEL) at Pad 0A on 6 April 2013. Photo Credit: NASA/Wallops/Brea Reeves

Despite its difficulties, Antares has stepped smartly through its pre-launch checks. A successful hot-fire test of the twin AJ-26 first-stage engines was completed on 22 February and the 133-foot-tall booster was rolled from its assembly building to Pad 0A – a one-mile journey – and raised to the vertical position by the TEL on 6 April. Wednesday’s launch attempt dawned smoothly, culminating in a ‘call to stations’ of all personnel at 8:45 a.m. EDT, but the weather remained iffy throughout the morning and afternoon, with low and broken cloud ceilings causing the likelihood of acceptable conditions at T-0 to be placed at a mere 45 percent.

As Wednesday morning wore into the afternoon, the situation remained balanced on a knife-edge, although Orbital managers elected to proceed and vehicle and payload avionics were powered-up and transferred to internal power. At 3:30 p.m. final polling led to a decision to press on with fueling Antares’ first stage with a rocket-grade form of kerosene (known as ‘RP-1’), followed shortly afterwards by the loading of liquid oxygen. The launch window, which had already been adjusted to 5:00-7:00 p.m., was shortened to occur within a 10-minute block at the start of this period. By 4:00 p.m., the propellant tanks for Antares’ twin AJ-26 first-stage engines were fully-fueled and weather conditions had improved slightly. The premature separation of an umbilical from the rocket occurred at 4:44:20 p.m., at which point the final ‘chilldown’ of the vehicle’s first-stage engines with super-cold helium was underway and all other systems were classified as normal. The scrub was confirmed at 4:48 p.m.

Aboard Antares for the A-ONE mission is a full-size Cygnus ‘mass simulator’, weighing 8,400 pounds, which will be instrumented to gather data on the launch, ascent and orbital flight environments, preparatory to the first flight of the cargo ship to the ISS. The mass simulator – which measures 16.5 feet long and 9.5 feet wide – carries 22 accelerometers, 12 digital thermometers, 24 thermacouples, 12 strain gauges and two microphones. Additionally, four tiny ‘picosatellites’ will be deployed from a dispenser. Three of these have been provided by NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., and are designed to demonstrate the use of smartphones as CubeSat avionics. (They are named Alexander, Graham and Bell, in honor of the Scottish-born inventor of the world’s first practical telephone.) The fourth payload, called Dove-1, is an amateur-radio satellite.

The A-ONE mission will demonstrate the fueling, pre-launch, launch, ascent and orbital operations for future Antares and Cygnus missions. Image Credit: Orbital Sciences Corp.

Assuming A-ONE proceeds to a successful launch on Saturday, the countdown will follow an almost-identical pattern to that followed for Wednesday’s scrubbed attempt. At T-3 minutes and 30 seconds, the terminal count will get underway, with the transfer of command to the vehicle’s autosequencer. Ignition of Antares’ twin AJ-26 first-stage engines will commence at T-2 seconds, with computer-controlled health checks conducted as they ramp up to full power. Each of these Aerojet-built powerplants produces a total sea-level thrust of 338,000 pounds. The engines were developed by the Soviet Union, as part of the ill-fated N-1 lunar rocket, and Aerojet purchased 36 of them from Russia in the mid-1990s and added modern electronics and instrumentation. Despite a kerosene fire in June 2011, caused by stress-corrosion cracks in the 40-year-old metal, the performance of the engines on the test stand has been encouraging so far.

Six seconds after liftoff, Antares will clear the TEL tower and establish itself onto a launch azimuth of 107.8 degrees. The AJ-26s will burn for almost four minutes, shutting down at an altitude of 66 miles. Five seconds will elapse before the separation of the first stage, after which the vehicle will coast for almost two minutes, before the jettisoning of the bullet-like payload fairing and ignition of the Castor-30A second-stage engine at T+328 seconds. By this point, Antares will have reached an altitude of 117 miles. The Castor-30A – a solid-fueled engine, built by Alliant TechSystems, with a maximum thrust of 89,000 pounds – will burn for more than two and a half minutes, providing the final impulse to achieve a low-Earth orbit of 155-186 miles, inclined 51.6 degrees to the equator. Finally, at T+603 seconds, the Cygnus mass simulator will separate from the vehicle. Unlike SpaceX’s Dragon, the Cygnus is not designed to survive re-entry and the simulator will burn up in the atmosphere.

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All dressed up and nowhere to go…at least, not yet. Orbital’s Antares booster waits patiently on Pad 0A at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS), ahead of its maiden voyage. Today’s launch attempt was scrubbed in the final minutes of the countdown. Photo Credit: Mark Usciak / AmericaSpace

Despite fluctuating worries about cloudy weather conditions, it was the premature separation of a loose second-stage umbilical which ended today’s attempt to get Orbital Sciences’ new Antares rocket into orbit on its “A-ONE” maiden voyage. The countdown to launch from Pad 0A at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) on Wallops Island, Va., proceeded normally until less than 30 minutes before the scheduled 5:00 p.m. EDT liftoff time, when “an anomaly” was noted and the long-awaited launch was called off. Early indications are that a delay of perhaps 48 hours will be necessary to ready Antares for another attempt, although this has yet to be officially confirmed.

The launch countdown was proceeding according to schedule with just a few minutes remaining before launch when the problem cropped up. Photo Credit: Bennett Scarborough

Following a successful hot-fire test of A-ONE’s AJ-26 engines on 22 February, and the rollout of the two-stage rocket to Pad 0A, on 6 April, preparations for the launch proceeded with exceptional smoothness. Late last night, the Antares vehicle team completed their final arming and closeout activities and the ‘call to stations’ of all personnel was performed at 8:45 a.m. EDT Wednesday. Right from the outset, however, there were doubts about the weather, with broken cloud ceilings at low altitude and only a 45-percent probability of acceptable conditions by the scheduled opening of the launch window at 5:00 p.m. Even tomorrow’s forecast does not look much better and is presently estimated to be only 50-percent acceptable for Antares to fly.

“We are of course disappointed, we weren’t working any issues on the pad and we were very much looking forward to launch and then we had the issue on the umbilical occur,” said Orbital Spokesperson Barry Beneski. “This is as much information as we know right now, and again, this is not overly surprising,  I don’t think we should be shocked that this happened, first time for the rocket, first time for the pad. So, while its disappointing, we’re going to try again.”

As the morning wore into the afternoon, the situation remained balanced on a knife-edge, although Orbital managers elected to proceed and the vehicle and payload avionics were powered-up and transferred to internal power. At 3:30 p.m. final polling led to a decision to press on with fueling the giant rocket’s first stage with a rocket-grade form of kerosene (known as ‘RP-1’), followed shortly afterwards by the loading of liquid oxygen. The launch window, which had already been adjusted to 5:00-7:00 p.m., was shortened to occur within a 15-minute block at the start of this period. By 4:00 p.m., the propellant tanks for Antares’ twin AJ-26 first-stage engines were fully-fueled and weather conditions had improved slightly to 60 percent. The premature separation of an umbilical from the rocket appears to have occurred within the final stages of the countdown.

The “A-ONE” mission is a test of the 133-foot-tall booster, whose most high-profile future role will be to support eight voyages of the Cygnus cargo craft to the International Space Station. Aboard Antares are a quartet of tiny ‘picosatellites’ in a dispenser, as well as a full-size, 8,400-pound mass simulator of Cygnus itself. Orbital Sciences – which won a $1.9 billion share of NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services contract, back in December 2008 – has much to prove and is faced with the daunting challenge of regaining ground already lost to its CRS competitor, SpaceX.

Orbital Sciences’ Antares rocket is raised to the vertical position at Pad 0A at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) on 6 April 2013. Photo Credit: Mark Usciak / AmericaSpace

Although A-ONE is a bare-bones evaluation of the new system, it is hugely significant for Orbital, which celebrated its 30th anniversary last year, and Antares represents its first cryogenically-propelled rocket. Its first stage is fed by a pair of Aerojet-built AJ-26 engines, developed from Soviet-era NK-33 powerplants, whose own heritage extends back to the ill-fated N-1 lunar booster of the 1960s. Fueled by rocket-grade kerosene (RP-1) and liquid oxygen, a total of 36 of these engines were purchased by Aerojet from Russia in the mid-1990s, at a cost of $1.1 million per unit. Each engine produces a sea-level thrust of 338,000 pounds and their performance on the test stand has been generally good, with the exception of a June 2011 kerosene fire, caused by stress-corrosion cracks in the 40-year-old metal.

If Antares’ development has been problematic, then so too has the process to build the MARS site, which Orbital’s President and CEO David Thompson described as “the first all-new, large-scale liquid-fuel launch site to be built in the U.S. for decades”. As part of the redevelopment of the site, Pad 0A was completely demolished, to make way for an entirely new facility with sophisticated kerosene and liquid oxygen tankage, but difficulties were experienced along the way, most notably with the propellant-handling equipment. This has conspired to push back the maiden voyage of Antares, and the first flight of Cygnus, by well over a year.

In the meantime, SpaceX – which won a $1.6 billion slice of the CRS pie – has tested its Falcon 9 booster, flown an inaugural demo mission of its Dragon craft to the International Space Station and staged two further operational cargo flights. Today’s scrub will come as a bitter disappointment for Orbital, although if the company achieves success in the next few days its hope – published on its website – to stage a Cygnus test flight to the space station “around mid-year”, may still be a realistic possibility.

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Orbital Sciences’ Antares rocket is raised to the vertical position at Pad 0A at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) on 6 April 2013. Photo Credit: Mark Usciak / AmericaSpace

In the early days of space exploration, the frequent term of the week was “A-OK,” but for Orbital Sciences Corp. this week everything will center on “A-ONE,” the maiden voyage of the company’s long-awaited Antares launch vehicle. Liftoff of the 133-foot-tall rocket is scheduled to occur from Pad 0A at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) on Wallops Island, Va., at 5 p.m. EDT, Wednesday, 17 April. Final preparations are ongoing and have been highlighted by a 29-second hot-fire test of Antares’ twin AJ-26 engines on 22 February and, most recently, the one-mile rollout of the vehicle from its assembly building to the pad on 6 April.

Although A-ONE is a bare-bones test mission for the new rocket, it carries enormous importance for Orbital, which was selected (alongside SpaceX) as one of two partners for NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract in December 2008. Orbital’s share of the CRS contract totals $1.9 billion and requires the company to launch eight flights of its Cygnus cargo craft to the International Space Station by 2016, transporting upwards of 44,000 pounds of equipment, payloads, and supplies to the sprawling outpost. Assuming a successful launch Wednesday, Orbital is quietly optimistic that an inaugural demo mission of Cygnus will be achievable “around mid-year,” with current estimates placing it in the June timeframe. However, the company, which celebrated its 30th anniversary last year, has much to prove, for SpaceX has already tested its own Falcon 9 rocket, has already completed its own demo flight, and has conducted two operational flights of its Dragon cargo craft in October 2012 and, most recently, last month.

The A-ONE mission will demonstrate the fueling, pre-launch, launch, ascent, and orbital operations for future Antares and Cygnus missions. Image Credit: Orbital Sciences Corp.

Wednesday’s liftoff of Antares will enable Orbital to validate its first cryogenically-powered rocket, as well as its largest launch vehicle to date. It is propelled by a pair of Aerojet-built AJ-26 engines, developed from a batch of Soviet-era NK-33 powerplants, whose own heritage extends back to the ill-fated N-1 lunar booster of the 1960s. Fueled by rocket-grade kerosene (RP-1) and liquid oxygen, these old engines have never been used. Aerojet purchased 36 of them from Russia in the mid-1990s, at a cost of $1.1 million per engine, and added modern electronics and made other performance enhancements. Early plans called for a single AJ-26 on Antares’ first stage, supplemented by strap-on boosters, but it was eventually decided to add a second engine and eliminate the boosters. Each engine produces a sea-level thrust of about 338,000 pounds, and they have generally performed well in a series of lengthy test-firings, dating back to March 2010. A notable anomaly occurred in June 2011, when an engine caught fire after a kerosene leak, apparently due to stress-corrosion cracks in its 40-year-old metal.

For A-ONE, the twin AJ-26s will be complemented by a second stage, equipped with an Alliant TechSystems Castor-30A solid-fueled motor, although subsequent missions are expected to benefit from a final stage, powered by hypergolic propellants. When fully operational, it is expected that Antares will be capable of injecting up to 15,000 pounds of payload into low-Earth orbit, although Orbital has contracted with Teledyne Brown to build a fully-U.S. version of the AJ-26, reportedly capable of 500,000 pounds of thrust. This makes it a possible contender for inclusion in NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) effort.

Clearly, NASA has great confidence in Antares. Last year, it added the vehicle to its NASA Launch Services Contract (NLS-II), which will enable Orbital to bid for future missions to carry medium-class scientific payloads into space. It also hopes to deliver scientific, civilian government, military intelligence, and commercial satellites aloft. However, the vehicle’s history has been mired with delay and difficulty, partly due to problems with its launch facility and the certification of propellant-handling operations at the MARS site. As the rocket evolved, so too did its name. Until December 2011, Antares was known by its developmental name of “Taurus II,” but this was changed in accordance with Orbital’s tradition of using ancient Greek celestial names—Pegasus, Taurus, Minotaur, for instance—for its projects. “A launch vehicle of this scale and significance,” explained Orbital Sciences President and CEO David Thompson at the time, “deserves its own name.” As a result, “Taurus II” was dropped in favor of “Antares.” In addition to being one of the brightest stars in the sky, the red-hued supergiant Antares also lent its name to the lunar module which ferried Apollo 14 astronauts Al Shepard and Ed Mitchell to the Moon in early 1971.

Antares’ twin AJ-26 first-stage engines are clearly visible in this view of the pre-dawn rollout of A-ONE to the launch pad on 6 April 2013. Photo Credit: Mark Usciak / AmericaSpace

And that scale is certainly extensive. Standing 133 feet tall and 12.8 feet in diameter, the rocket in its present form has the capacity to boost up to 11,000 pounds of payload into low-Earth orbit. After receiving its initial push to the edge of space by the AJ-26s, Alliant TechSystems’ Castor-30A will ignite to complete the climb into orbit. With a maximum thrust of 89,000 pounds, this engine was originally part of the first stage for Orbital’s Athena and Taurus I rockets and can trace its heritage back to the Peacekeeper missile. The first two Antares launches—including the Cygnus demo flight, which Orbital expects to stage in June of this year—will utilize the Castor-30A, after which an upgraded Castor-30B will be introduced for two subsequent launches and, eventually, a “stretched” Castor-XL to boost payload capacity from 4,400 pounds to almost 6,000 pounds for the final five dedicated Cygnus cargo missions.

On Wednesday’s A-ONE mission, Antares will loft a “mass simulator” for the Cygnus craft into an orbit of 155-186 miles, inclined 51.6 degrees to the equator, providing a close parallel for its upcoming ISS launch schedule. Ignition of the twin AJ-26 engines will occur two seconds ahead of liftoff, and the liquid-fueled powerplants will burn for almost four minutes, shutting down at T+230 seconds, at an altitude of 66 miles. Five seconds will elapse before the separation of the first stage, after which the rocket will coast for almost two minutes, ahead of the jettisoning of the payload fairing and ignition of the Castor 30A-powered second stage at T+328 seconds. By this point, Antares will have reached an altitude of 117 miles. The Castor-30A will burn for more than two and a half minutes, providing the final impulse to achieve low-Earth orbit, and at T+601 seconds the Cygnus Mass Simulator will separate from the vehicle.

Artist’s concept of the rendezvous of the Cygnus cargo craft with the International Space Station. Assuming a successful flight on A-ONE, the Cygnus demo mission may occur as early as June 2013. Image Credit: Orbital Sciences Corp.

The simulator is heavily instrumented to gather data on the launch environment, although Antares will also deploy four tiny “picosatellites” from a pair of dispensers. All this will offer a taste for the first Cygnus demo mission to the International Space Station, which will follow an approach profile similar to the one pursued by Dragon. The spacecraft will perform an intricate two-day rendezvous and numerous systems and functionality tests, eventually closing within range of the station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm for grappling and berthing onto the Earth-facing port of the Harmony node. Like Dragon, each Cygnus mission is expected to spend about a month at the ISS, but unlike the SpaceX-built craft it is not intended to survive re-entry and will instead execute a destructive dive into the atmosphere.

“NASA’s commercial space program is helping to ensure American companies launch our astronauts and their supplies from U.S. soil,” said Associate Administrator for Communications David Weaver, speaking last year. That soil, however, has been part of the problem for Antares’ lengthy wait for its maiden voyage. Launch pad modifications at the MARS site included the construction of a horizontal integration facility and a wheeled transporter, capable of rolling the entire vehicle to the pad a mere 24 hours ahead of liftoff. The program also required the complete demolition of Pad 0A itself and the construction of an entirely new facility with kerosene and liquid oxygen tankage. Certainly, Orbital is proud of its accomplishment, which represents—in the words of President and CEO David Thompson—“the first all-new, large-scale liquid-fuel launch site to be built in the U.S. in decades.”

Want to keep up-to-date with all things space? Be sure to “Like” AmericaSpace on Facebook and follow us on Twitter:@AmericaSpace

Reproduced with permission from our partner www.AmericaSpace.com

Gantry mechanisms on either side of the Soyuz TMA-08M spacecraft are raised into position to secure the rocket at the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Photo Credit: (NASA/Carla Cioffi)

Today sees the express delivery of the next ISS Crew to the Space Station. Launching onboard a Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan the Rapid Rendezvous Flight Profile trialled on the Proton cargo missions will be employed.

The launch is timed for 20:43 GMT (4:43pm EDT) which is 2:43am on the 29th at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The rocket was rolled out to Launch Pad 1 / Launcher 5 on the 26th March where it has been undergoing final preparations for todays flight.

This calls for a very precise launch window with the launch pad and the space station carefully lined up. After launch the Soyuz will chase down the ISS and rendezvous with the space station after only four orbits. Launch to docking will take less than six hours rather than the normal 2 days.

There will be a live launch tracker on our partner www.AmericaSpace.com website covering the entire journey from the Baikonur launch pad to docking with the International Space Station.

The Soyuz TMA-08M will carry Chris Cassidy of NASA, along with Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) to complete the ISS Expedition 35 crew. The astronauts will also form the first crew members for ISS Expedition 36 when Pavel Vinogradov will assume commandership of the space station from Canadian Chris Hadfield.

The Soyuz TMA-08M spacecraft will remain berthed to the ISS until September 2013. The Soyuz-TMA consists of a 3 stage booster and an Orbital Spacecraft. The Orbital Spacecraft is itself constructed in 3 parts containing a Crew Module, Launch and Descent Module and Propulsion Module.

The U.S. Air Force’s second Space-Based Infrared System destined for Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (SBIRS GEO-2) roars away from Space Launch Complex (SLC)-41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., at 5:21 p.m. EST, 19 March 2013. Photo Credit: Julian Leek / Blue Sawtooth Studios

The Pentagon’s goal of having an advanced network of infrared missile and early-warning satellites, fully operational in geosynchronous orbit, more than 22,000 miles above our heads, drew a step closer to reality this evening, with the spectacular liftoff of United Launch Alliance’s workhorse Atlas V 401 at 5:21 p.m. EDT. The mission was staged from Space Launch Complex (SLC)-41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., and occurred precisely on time at the start of a 40-minute “window.” Aboard the Atlas was SBIRS GEO-2, the second member of the multi-billion-dollar Space-Based Infrared System to be destined for Geosynchronous Earth Orbit.

According to the Pentagon and SBIRS’ prime contractor, Lockheed Martin, the system represents the latest effort to replace the outdated Defense Support Program (DSP) of infrared early-warning satellites, whose ancestry stretches back to the early 1970s. It is confidently expected that SBIRS will enable the United States’ space surveillance needs for at least the next two decades, with specific focuses including advanced early warning, missile defense, and battlespace characterization. In its final form, it will comprise at least four satellites in geosynchronous orbit, together with sensors hosted aboard two others in highly-elliptical orbits (HEO-1 and 2)—which were launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., in June 2006 and March 2008—and an expansive ground-based command, control, and data-processing network. Following numerous delays, caused by software malfunctions and other hardware deficiencies, the first dedicated Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO-1) SBIRS was successfully lofted from Cape Canaveral, atop an Atlas V 401, in May 2011.

“The ULA team is honored to serve a pivotal role in placing this critical capability in orbit for our women and men serving around the world and protecting our freedom,” said Jim Sponnick, ULA vice president, Mission Operations. “From nearly two years ago when we began production of the launch vehicle, through today’s successful mission delivery, this very strong and well-integrated government and industry team has ensured that mission success remains the highest priority at every step in the process.”

Air Force sources have acknowledged that the SBIRS GEO-1 satellite performed better than expected during its year-long orbital testing phase in 2012, and it demonstrated a sensor-pointing accuracy “nine times more precise than required” and was capable of “detecting targets 25 percent dimmer than required with an intensity measurement 60 percent more accurate than specification.” However, the website NASASpaceflight.com noted that “a defect in its communications system” was discovered during operational testing in November 2012, and this may delay its entry into full service. According to Space.com, GEO-1 “should be fully accepted into the operational fleet later this year,” raising the possibility that today’s GEO-2 may enter operations ahead of its older sibling.

Pictured during pre-flight inspection and closeout, the SBIRS GEO-2 spacecraft will enable the United States’ space surveillance needs for at least the next two decades. Photo Credit: U.S. Air Force

Processing of SBIRS GEO-2 has gone exceptionally smoothly and the satellite was encapsulated into its two-piece (“bisector”) payload fairing on 4 March, ahead of stacking atop the Atlas V last week. The rocket, which today enjoyed its 37th mission and continued a proud tradition with a near-perfect launch record, flew in its “401″ configuration, with a 4-meter (13-foot) payload fairing, no strap-on boosters, and a single-engine Centaur upper stage. This is identical in physical appearance to the Atlas Vs used for the launch of NASA’s latest Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS-K) from Cape Canaveral in January, as well as last month’s Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) from Vandenberg. Since its maiden voyage in August 2002, the Atlas V’s sole blemish was a Centaur problem in June 2007, which produced a lower than intended orbit for its classified National Reconnaissance Office primary payload. Capped-off by the payload shroud, the 401 stood almost 19 stories tall and presented an impressive sight, backdropped by Cape Canaveral’s marshy landscape.

At the formal Launch Readiness Review last weekend, Air Force meteorologists predicted a 70-percent chance of acceptable weather conditions at T-zero. With the bulbous payload shroud in place, the giant rocket was rolled out to the SLC-41 pad surface early this week and Launch Day dawned fine, with east-south-easterly winds gusting at 15 knots and no change in the meteorologists’ estimates. With ten minutes remaining, at 5:12 p.m. EST, controllers worked through the final stages of a problem-free countdown and completed their final “Go/No Go” polls for launch. The consensus was a “Go” to proceed. A final status check of the rocket, upper stage, and payload at T-25 seconds was met with clipped confirmation that all was ready: “Go Atlas, Go Centaur, Go SBIRS.” The Atlas’ Russian-built RD-180 engine—with a thrust yield of 860,000 pounds—roared to life at T-2.7 seconds, burning liquid oxygen and a refined form of rocket-grade kerosene, known as “RP-1.” Liftoff occurred precisely on time at 5:21:00.219 p.m. EST.

Climb-out of the Atlas from SLC-41 commenced at T+1.1 seconds, beginning a seemingly slow climb for 16 seconds by the pencil-like vehicle, after which the avionics of the Centaur commanded a pitch, roll, and yaw maneuver. This established the vehicle onto the proper 98.82-degree flight azimuth, following a due-east trajectory to inject SBIRS GEO-2 into orbit. Impressive “rocket-cam” imagery traced the picture-perfect ascent, revealing the steadily expanding Florida coastline as the Atlas climbed ever higher into the rarefied atmosphere. As expected, the RD-180 burned hot and hard for a little over four minutes, shutting down at T+243 seconds, to be followed by the separation of the 41-foot-long Centaur and the payload.

To support the deployment of SBIRS GEO-2 into its correct orbital “slot,” the upper stage performed two lengthy firings of its 22,300-pound-thrust RL-10A engine. The first burn, lasting 11 minutes, placed the combo into a “parking” orbit, after which the two-piece payload fairing was be jettisoned, exposing the satellite to the space environment for the first time. Both events were spectacularly illustrated in the rocket-cam imagery. A nine-minute coasting phase was followed by a second burn, lasting nearly four minutes, which culminated in a scheduled engine cut-off at 5:49 p.m. EST.

Glorious view of the SBIRS GEO-2 liftoff. Photo Credit: Jason Rhian / AmericaSpace

The SBIRS-Centaur duo then entered a 15-minute coast, ahead of the separation of the spacecraft, which occurred at 6:04 p.m. EST, whilst over the Indian Ocean, in sight of the Diego Garcia tracking station. According to preliminary data, SBIRS GEO-2’s initial orbit at the moment of separation achieved a perigee (or “low” point) of 98 miles and an apogee (or “high” point) of 19,403 miles, inclined 22.2 degrees to the equator, which was very close to pre-launch estimates. “We understand the important role SBIRS plays in our national security architecture and the entire SBIRS team has worked tirelessly to prepare this satellite for a successful launch,” said Jeff Smith, Lockheed Martin’s vice president of Overhead Persistent Infrared (OPIR) mission area. “The dedication and talent of this SBIRS team is remarkable and we are keenly focused on delivering mission success for the warfighter.”

Today’s triumphant launch marks the culmination of a long and tortured development process, which saw the SBIRS project costs literally balloon from an estimated $4 billion to over $17 billion. According to General Accounting Office auditors, and reported by Defense Industry Daily in February 2013, it suffered from “immature technologies, unclear requirements, unstable funding, underestimated software complexity, poor oversight and other problems.” The U.S. Air Force’s apparent lack of alternatives for an urgent national requirement to have an advanced surveillance system in orbit to monitor ballistic missile launches and nuclear events apparently prevented SBIRS’ cancellation. Originally scheduled to fly a decade ago, only now is the project gradually reaching fruition.

The SBIRS GEO-2 spacecraft is encapsulated within its two-piece (“bisector”) payload fairing, ahead of stacking atop the Atlas V 401 for today’s launch. Photo Credit: U.S. Air Force

SBIRS GEO-2 is expected to enhance the Pentagon’s surveillance capabilities yet further. Speaking in August 2011, Col. Scott Larrimore, chief of the U.S. Air Force’s SBIRS Space Division, described these capabilities as “much needed.” They include highly sophisticated scanning and staring sensors, with improved infrared sensitivity and the scope to provide a wide-area (“scanning”) surveillance of missile launches and natural phenomena across the planet, as well as observing smaller regions (“staring”) with superior sensitivity and reliability. Currently, Lockheed Martin’s SBIRS contract encompasses four HEO payloads, four GEO satellites, and ground-based assets, although the option exists for future fifth and sixth GEO missions.

United Launch Alliance, for whom the launch of this important surveillance sentinel marks their third mission of the year, are entirely aware of its importance. According to Jim Sponnick, ULA’s vice president for Mission Operations, the new satellite “will provide the nation with significantly improved missile warning and defense, battlespace awareness and technical intelligence.” Its sensors are considerably more flexible than the earlier DSP, and their capacity to detect short-wave and expanded mid-wave infrared signals enable SBIRS to perform a broader set of tasks. The satellite network will be operated by the U.S. Air Force Space Command.

“We are proud to partner with the U.S. Air Force on the SBIRS program to deliver highly reliable infrared surveillance capabilities for strategic and tactical users across the defense and intelligence community,” said Jeff Smith, Lockheed Martin’s vice president of Lockheed Martin’s Overhead Persistent Infrared (OPIR) mission area. “Thanks to the unmatched expertise of the entire government and industry SBIRS team, we are confident this satellite will meet or exceed expectations and play a pivotal role in our national security for years to come.”

SBIRS GEO-2 Hard Down on Launch Pad (Credit Alan Walters AmericaSpace.com)

The Atlas V booster with the Centaur second stage and SBRIS GEO-2 spacecraft stack made its way to the launch pad. The rollout from the Vertical Integration Facility took about 30 minutes. The first 75 yards or so was quite slow as the stack has to exit the VIF and then negotiate a crossing on the tracks leading to the launch pad.

The first motion was at 9:58am EDT. The path to the launch pad has twin tracks with locomotives powering the rocket on it’s slow trip. The train also provides mobile services to the rocket to keep it’s systems up and running during the transit.

As the Mobile Launch Platform approaches launch pad 41 it has to climb a slight gradient. The platform has a levelling device to ensure that the rocket is always upright even when travelling uphill. The Atlas V slowed down once again as it approached the launch pad. The next task is what is known as Hard Down. This is when the Mobile Launch Platform is secured and all the services are switched from the support carriages to the Launch Pad infrastructure. When that is complete the service vehicles will be rolled away and the final preparations for tomorrows launch will commence.

More images follow:

Although the launch countdown is underway it will begin in earnest around 11am EDT tomorrow when the tanking of the booster starts. The tanking or fuelling of the booster is the first task with RP-1 (highly purified kerosene) and liquid oxygen. During this process the familiar copper colour of the booster will turn white with frost. The Centaur second stage tanking starts at around T-2 hours. The Centaur propellant uses liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. When the tanking operations are complete they enter a topping off mode ensuring that any propellants that boil off are replenished.

During the countdown there are a number of weather briefings and status polls. The most important ones are held at T-6 hours before the booster tanking, T-2 hours before the Centaur tanking, with the critical one held during the T-4 minute hold. The T-4 poll determines the final go/no go for launch. Should it be required the launch team can call a hold right down until just before liftoff.

Should a hold be called it normally takes about 20 minutes to recycle the countdown to restart at T-4. If a hold is called then it is possible to have a second launch attempt as the window extends 40 minutes, but it does, of course, depend on clearing the issue that caused the hold in the first place.

The Space Launch Complex 41 is surrounded by 4 towers which have large white posts at the top. These form the lightening protection system. What is difficult to see in pictures is that each of these towers are connected in a mesh of wiring with a hole in the center to allow the rocket to launch. If there is a thunderstorm then this network will protect the rocket from a direct lightening strike. We are not expecting any storms between now and the launch.

Atlas V launch viewed from Playalinda beach in 2007

If you are contemplating going out to view the Atlas V launch of the SBIRS satellite on Monday then by far the best place off Cape Canaveral AFS property is going to be Playalinda Beach.  This will give you an unobstructed view of the launch pad from a distance of about 5 miles.  The beach closes at dusk so there will not be a problem as dusk today is well after the launch window closes but do check before setting up.

To get to the viewing point you will need to cross Max Brewer Bridge and go all the way down the road, past the KSC northern gate, to the beach.  You will have to turn north for a way until you reach the first parking lot.

Park up and then cross the sand dunes to the beach.  Head south on the beach for about 3/4 of a mile until you reach a fence.  This is the NASA KSC boundary line and the closest you can get to the launch pad.

Looking south you will see LC-39B almost demolished, then LC-39A and the next pad round is LC-41 which is where the Atlas will launch from.

A detailed map of the beach can be found here.  The parking lots are the white rectangles and the viewpoint for the Atlas V launch can just be made out by following SR-402 out to the ocean.

Other viewing spots follow:

If the beach is shut or not appropriate for you then alternate viewing points are on the SR-401 behind Port Canaveral cruise docks where the launch complex is just over 11 miles away.  There may be a few issues with buildings blocking the view of the pad from there, but a good view should be available if you move around a bit.

Failing that then the Max Brewer Bridge can offer a good view of the launch from the top of Titusville.  It is 13 miles from the launch pad so the sound of the launch will not be great, but with the elevation you should be able to see the pad and get a great view of the launch.  The pad should be lit up with Xenon spotlights, but if you look about half way between the VAB and LC-39A you should be able to see the LC-39 viewing platform and just to the left of that but further back is LC-41.

United Launch Alliance will host its first “Tweetup” during the Mar. 19 launch of the Atlas V 401 rocket with the SBIRS 2 (GEO-2) satellite. Photo Credit: Alan Walters / awaltersphoto.com

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla – United Launch Alliance is getting ready to follow in the footsteps of NASA in that the Colorado-based company is getting set to hold its own version of the NASA “social” which has proven so popular in recent years. Until recently, only NASA-related missions had socials. Now, space enthusiasts can carry the citizen-journalist trend into the launch of non NASA launches such as the scheduled Mar. 19 launch of the Space Based Infrared System 2 (SBIRS-2) satellite atop an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 41 located in Florida.

NASA held its first “Tweetup” in 2009. Since that term the scope of these events has expanded and events have now been called “Socials.” Space enthusiasts have been invited to see the successful beginning of the agency’s commercial crew efforts with the launch  of SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station, the liftoff of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover Curiosity and numerous other pivotal events.

“I think that the biggest thing we’ve seen in social media, is the explosion in the amount of accessibility, the technology makes it possible for almost anyone to become a ‘citizen journalist’ for want of a better term,” said NASA’s Associate Administrator for Communication during a recent interview with AmericaSpace. “We feel that it is important to plug into those people in some meaningful way.”

NASA’s efforts have caught the attention of many both inside and outside the space industry. As ULA is one of the companies that works very closely with NASA, they’ve seen how much positive attention that these events can generate and have opted to follow up with “Tweetups” of their own. The company that launches a variety of payloads into orbit atop the Atlas V, Delta II & Delta IV families of rockets invited social media buffs to attend this two-day event (activities will kick off on the 18th and extend through the following day with the launch of SBIRS 2) .  By all accounts the response so far has been positive, this could mean that ULA Tweetups could become a regular event.

Reproduced with permission of our partner www.AmericaSpace.com

The SBIRS GEO-2 spacecraft arrives at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., in January 2013. Photo Credit: U.S. Air Force

A new set of powerful infrared eyes should take up residency in orbit, more than 22,000 miles above our heads, in less than a week’s time, when the Pentagon launches the next member of its multi-billion-dollar Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS). Liftoff of the GEO-2 mission – the second satellite of its generation destined for Geosynchronous Earth Orbit – is currently scheduled to take place from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., atop United Launch Alliance’s venerable Atlas V 401 booster at the start of a 40-minute ‘window’, which opens at 5:21 p.m. EDT on 19 March. Processing for the impending mission continues to go well and the SBIRS GEO-2 satellite was encapsulated in its two-piece payload fairing on 4 March, ahead of stacking atop the Atlas.

According to the Pentagon and SBIRS’ prime contractor, Lockheed Martin, the system represents the latest effort to replace the outdated Defense Support Program (DSP) network of infrared missile early-warning satellites, whose ancestry stretches back to the early 1970s. It is confidently expected that SBIRS will enable the United States’ space surveillance needs for at least the next two decades, with specific focuses including advanced early warning, missile defense and battlespace characterization. In its final form, it will comprise at least four satellites in geosynchronous orbit, together with sensors aboard two others in highly-elliptical orbits (HEO-1 and 2) – which were launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., in June 2006 and March 2008 – and an expansive ground-based command, control and data-processing network. Following numerous delays, caused by software malfunctions and other hardware deficiencies, the first dedicated Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO-1) SBIRS was successfully lofted from Cape Canaveral, atop an Atlas V 401, in May 2011.

The Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO) is the high-orbiting component of the Pentagon’s new infrared early-warning and missile-defense shield. Photo Credit: U.S. Air Force

This triumphant launch marked the culmination of a long and tortured development process, which saw the SBIRS project costs literally balloon by over 400 percent from an estimated $4 billion to over $17 billion. According to General Accounting Office auditors, and reported by Defense Industry Daily in February 2013, it suffered from “immature technologies, unclear requirements, unstable funding, underestimated software complexity, poor oversight and other problems”. The U.S. Air Force’s apparent lack of alternatives for an urgent national requirement to have an advanced surveillance system in orbit to monitor ballistic missile launches and nuclear events seems to have prevented SBIRS’ cancellation. Originally scheduled to fly a decade ago, only now is the project gradually reaching fruition.

The second satellite, GEO-2, is expected to enhance the Pentagon’s surveillance capabilities yet further. Speaking in August 2011, Col. Scott Larrimore, chief of the U.S. Air Force’s SBIRS Space Division, described these capabilities as “much needed”. They include highly sophisticated scanning and staring sensors, with improved infrared sensitivity and the scope to provide a wide-area (‘scanning’) surveillance of missile launches and natural phenomena across the planet, as well as observing smaller regions (‘staring’) with superior sensitivity and reliability. Currently, Lockheed Martin’s SBIRS contract encompasses four HEO payloads, four GEO satellites and ground-based assets, although the option exists for future fifth and sixth GEO missions.

SBIRS GEO-2 will fly atop the ‘401’ configuration of the Atlas V, with a 4-meter (13-foot) payload fairing, no strap-on rocket boosters and a single-engine Centaur upper stage. The 401 is identical in physical appearance to the vehicle used for the launch of NASA’s latest Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS-K) from Cape Canaveral in January, as well as last month’s Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) from Vandenberg. Since its maiden voyage in August 2002, the Atlas V has flown 36 times, with a near-perfect launch record, whose only blemish was a Centaur upper stage problem in June 2007, which produced a lower than intended orbit for its classified National Reconnaissance Office primary payload. Capped-off by its bulbous, two-piece payload shroud, the giant rocket stands almost 19 stories tall.

Should the launch of SBIRS GEO-2 occur on time, the Atlas will rise from Space Launch Complex (SLC)-41 into early-evening Florida skies in what promises to be a spectacular sight for viewers along the Space Coast. The Russian-built RD-180 engine will roar to life, approximately 2.7 seconds before liftoff, burning liquid oxygen and a refined form of rocket-grade kerosene, known as ‘RP-1’, and producing 860,000 pounds of thrust. Climb-out from SLC-41 will commence at T+1.1 seconds and the avionics of the Centaur upper stage will command a pitch, roll and yaw maneuver to establish the vehicle onto the proper flight azimuth, following an easterly trajectory to inject SBIRS GEO-2 into orbit.

The Pentagon’s SBIRS GEO-2 mission will be launched atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 401 rocket. Photo Credit: Jason Rhian

In total, the RD-180 will burn for a little over four minutes, shutting down at T+243 seconds, to be followed by the separation of the 41-foot-long Centaur and attached payload. To support the deployment of SBIRS GEO-2 into its correct orbital ‘slot’, the upper stage will perform two lengthy firings of its 22,300-pound-thrust RL-10A engine. The first, lasting 11 minutes, will place the combo into a ‘parking’ orbit, after which the two-piece payload fairing will be jettisoned, exposing the satellite to the space environment for the first time. A nine-minute coasting phase will be followed by a second burn, lasting nearly four minutes, and a 15-minute coast. Assuming an on-time liftoff, SBIRS GEO-2 will be released from the Centaur to begin its mission about 43 minutes after leaving Cape Canaveral.

United Launch Alliance, for whom the launch of this important surveillance sentinel will mark their third mission of the year, are entirely aware of its importance. According to Jim Sponnick, ULA’s vice president for Mission Operations, the new satellite “will provide the nation with significantly improved missile warning and defense, battlespace awareness and technical intelligence”. Its sensors are considerably more flexible than the earlier DSP and their capacity to detect short-wave and expanded mid-wave infrared signals enable SBIRS to perform a broader set of tasks. The satellite network will be operated by the U.S. Air Force Space Command.

Reproduced with permission from our partner www.AmericaSpace.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHTQRhmvMNw

At 10:10 EST on March 1st the SpaceX Falcon 9s Merlin engines roared into life lofting the Dragon capsule into orbit. Both first and second stages performed perfectly before a problem was encountered with the thrusters on the Dragon capsule.

Fortunately these issues were overcome by recycling the control valves and the Dragon capsule went on to rendezvous and berth with the International Space Station successfully.

SpaceX began the second mission under the $1.6 billion Commercial Resupply Services contract that the company has with NASA right on time at 10:10:13 a.m. EST. The launch site was Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 in Florida. Photo Credit: Julian Leek / Blue Sawtooth Studio

The cold light of day is one of those idioms used in conjunction with the grimness of reality, but today’s rousing launch of SpaceX’s third Dragon cargo mission to the International Space Station—and its second under the terms of the $1.6 billion Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract with NASA—experienced no such grimness. For the on-time liftoff of CRS-2 at 10:10 a.m. EST was the first occasion on which an ISS-bound Dragon rose from Earth in daylight; both its inaugural demonstration mission to the station in May 2012 and last October’s first dedicated cargo flight roared aloft in the hours of darkness. Preparations for the CRS-2 mission proceeded with exceptional smoothness, culminating in a successful static test-firing of the Falcon 9 rocket’s engines Monday. The nine Merlin-1C engines on the first stage pummelled the surface of Space Launch Complex (SLC)-40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., for several seconds and were automatically shut down without incident. This served to bolster the confidence of SpaceX—the Hawthorne, Calif., company, headed by entrepreneur Elon Musk—following the problematic ascent of CRS-1 into orbit last Oct. 7. That mission suffered a premature shutdown of one of its engines just 80 seconds after launch, and although its Dragon was delivered perfectly into orbit, the anomaly spelled disaster for a small Orbcomm piggyback satellite.

AmericaSpace will be sure to update the final line of this infographic, as the launch date of CRS-2 is no longer “To Be Determined.” Image Courtesy of Max-Q Entertainment

To be fair, last year’s anomaly vindicated SpaceX’s claim that the Falcon 9 can recover from such “engine-out” scenarios, but the resultant investigation pushed the CRS-2 launch back by a couple months from January 2013 into March. In the wake of this investigation, the booster for the CRS-2 mission arrived at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in late November, and the Dragon craft was mounted atop the Falcon earlier this month. Today’s final preparations ran crisply, with the loading of liquid oxygen and RP-1 (a form of rocket-grade kerosene) propellants completed a little over three hours before the scheduled launch time. The excitement began to build at 10:04 a.m., when the Terminal Count autosequence started, to be followed shortly afterwards by verification from the SpaceX Launch Director that the vehicle was ready to go.

Liftoff! SpaceX racks up another successful launch of the Falcon 9 rocket. Photo Credit: Julian Leek / Blue Sawtooth Studio

With 60 seconds left on the countdown clock, the Falcon’s command flight computer began its final pre-launch checks and the SLC-40’s “Niagara” deluge system began the process of depositing 30,000 gallons of water per minute through 53 nozzles directly onto the pad surface, forming a vast “curtain” to suppress acoustic waves from the engine plumes and mitigate the vibration effect on the vehicle. At 40 seconds, the propellant tanks were pressurized and at T-3 seconds engine controllers commanded the ignition sequence of the nine Merlin-1C powerplants to commence.Like its predecessors, CRS-2 followed an “instantaneous” launch window, in which every step of preparation was geared toward a liftoff at a very precise time, with no leeway for delay or error. “Everything,” noted SpaceX’s press kit for the mission, “is timed to the exact second of scheduled liftoff. Because an off-time liftoff would require Dragon to use extra propellant to reach the space station, the launch window must be hit precisely. If not, the mission will be attempted on another day.”“Falcon 9 was designed to be the world’s most reliable rocket, and today’s launch validated this by adding to Falcon 9’s perfect track record with our fifth success in a row,” said Gwynne Shotwell, President of SpaceX. Fortunately, under weather conditions initially described as 80 percent favorable (which turned into 90 percent), and despite a slight risk of wind and cloud violations, the Falcon 9 thundered away from SLC-40 precisely on time. Its nine engines, with a combined thrust of around 1.1 million pounds, provided the impulse for the first three minutes of its ascent. Seventy seconds into the flight, and nearing the point at which its predecessor hiccupped, the vehicle attained supersonic speed and subsequently passed through the area of maximum aerodynamic turbulence—known as “Max Q”—during which time the stresses upon the airframe from extreme velocity and atmospheric resistance were at their worst. At T+170 seconds, two of the Merlins were automatically shut down, as planned, to reduce the rocket’s acceleration, and the remaining engines cut-off, precisely on time, ten seconds later. By now, the Falcon 9 was 50 miles high, above much of the “sensible” atmosphere, and spearing towards orbit. Five seconds after first-stage cut-off, the second stage—powered by a single Merlin-1C Vacuum engine, with a yield of 100,000 pounds—roared silently to life to begin its 345-second “burn” to inject Dragon into its preliminary low-Earth orbit. (As a side note, at full power the Merlin-1C Vacuum operates with the greatest efficiency ever seen in a U.S.-made hydrocarbon rocket engine.) Finally, nine-and-a-half minutes since leaving the East Coast of Florida, the second stage shut down and the Dragon was separated. At the time of writing, the vehicle was in the process of unfurling its electricity-generating solar arrays, deploying its Guidance and Navigation Control (GNC) Bay Door to expose critical rendezvous sensors, and beginning a complex series of firings of its Draco thrusters to reach the ISS.

The Dragon spacecraft that will carry out the CRS-2 cargo run is slated to arrive at the station tomorrow. Image Credit: Max-Q Entertainment

An issue arose with Dragon’s thrusters upon reaching orbit. SpaceX addressed the problem in a release stating the following: One thruster pod is running. Two are preferred to take the next step, which is to deploy the solar arrays. We are working to bring up the other two in order to plan the next series of burns to get to station. Shortly thereafter the problem apparently was resolved, with Musk tweeting that the solar arrays had been deployed. It was later reported by Robert Pearlman with CollectSPACE.com that all four of Dragon’s thruster pods had been engaged and that all of Dragon’s systems were now “Green.” As this article was being prepared, the spacecraft was being readied for its “R-Bar” (or “Earth Radius Vector”) rendezvous profile, an imaginary line extending from the center of Earth toward the ISS, meaning it will meet the space station from “below.” In doing so, Dragon will take advantage of natural gravitational forces to brake its final approach and reduce the overall number of thruster firings it needs to perform.

This tight shot was taken by John Studwell from on top of NASA’s massive Vehicle Assembly Building as Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Photo Credit: John Studwell

Tomorrow, CRS-2 will establish an ultra-high-frequency communications link with the station, using its UHF communications unit (CUCU), which will enable the incumbent Expedition 34 crew—led by Commander Kevin Ford—to monitor its approach. A carefully orchestrated symphony of maneuvers will bring the craft to a position about 1.5 miles from the ISS, where a “Go/No-Go” decision to proceed will be made. Further Go/No-Go decisions will be made at distances of 3,700 feet, then 820 feet, then 100 feet, and finally 30 feet, before Dragon is captured by U.S. Operating Segment (USOS) crewmen Ford and Tom Marshburn, using the station’s 57-foot-long Canadarm2 robotic arm. Both men will be based in the station’s multi-windowed cupola, which will afford them expansive panoramic views of the rendezvous and docking at the nadir-facing Harmony node. During these incremental steps toward its quarry, Dragon will employ its close-range guidance instruments, including lidar and thermal imaging equipment, to confirm the accuracy of its position and velocity. After initial berthing at Harmony, the vestibule between the two spacecraft will be pressurized Sunday, and Ford and his crew will open the hatch to begin a three-week process of unloading Dragon’s 1,490 pounds of cargo. This mission sees the first use of the unpressurized “Trunk” section to carry equipment and supplies, and a little more than half of CRS-2’s load is devoted to ongoing scientific research.

Dragon will remain at the ISS for about 25 days and will deliver about 1,200 lbs of cargo to the orbiting laboratory. Photo Credit: Alan Walters / Awaltersphoto.com

This includes a pair of General Laboratory Active Cryogenic ISS Experiment Refrigerators (GLACIERs), one powered and the other unpowered, to support multiple biological samples with thermal-control requirements between -160°C and +4°C. A spare electronics unit for one of the station’s Minus-Eighty Laboratory Freezers for ISS (MELFI), a Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) bed, and crew provisions will also be aboard. Attached to the Trunk will be two Heat Rejection Subsystem Grapple Fixtures (HRSGFs), which will provide grapple fixtures to enable the Canadarm2 to interface with ISS radiators, should the need arise to repair or replace them. Shortly after CRS-2 arrives at the space station Saturday, the Trunk external payloads will be robotically removed by Canadarm2, under the control of Ford and Marshburn. They will be temporarily housed on the Mobile Base System of the football-field-sized truss structure to await installation on the S-1 and P-1 truss segments during an EVA by Expedition 36 astronauts Chris Cassidy and Luca Parmitano in June-July. Dragon’s return to Earth, and a splashdown in the waters of the Pacific Ocean off the coast of southern California, is presently scheduled for 25 March. The spacecraft’s recoverable re-entry capsule will bring over 3,000 pounds of equipment and materials back to Earth, including a GLACIER freezer and several failed environmental control system components. In doing so, Dragon will demonstrate yet again its capacity to pick up and run with the baton from the now-retired space shuttle fleet, providing the United States with a home-grown upmass/downmass capability to and from the ISS. Following its return to the waters of the Pacific, it appears that subsequent Dragon missions will take place at roughly six-month intervals, with CRS-3 tentatively scheduled to fly on 30 September and CRS-4 in early April 2014. NASA’s contract with SpaceX calls for the company to stage 12 CRS missions in total and deliver around 44,000 pounds of payload to the ISS.

Published with permission of www.AmericaSpace.com

Falcon 9 static firing on Monday (credit SpaceX)

The weather for tomorrows SpaceX CRS-2 launch predicts an 80% chance of favourable weather for the launch.

With scattered stratocumulus clouds between 4,000 and 6,000 feet and broken altocumulus between 14,000 and 18,000 there should be good visibility. The winds are predicted to be gusty, but below lift-off limits.

With a temperature of 60F it will be quite cool, but there is 0 chance of rain. The main concerns for violation of launch criteria are Thick Clouds and liftoff winds.

CRS-2 Mission patch (Credit SpaceX)

The last twelve months have truly been a rollercoaster ride for Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX)—the Hawthorne, Calif., company, led by entrepreneur Elon Musk—whose Falcon 9 rocket and unmanned Dragon cargo craft thundered into the public consciousness in both a positive and negative light. In May 2012, Dragon triumphantly flew a demonstration flight to the International Space Station, becoming the first commercial craft ever to have a spacecraft be berthed there, and in October its maiden Commercial Resupply Services (CRS-1) mission under SpaceX’s $1.6 billion contract with NASA was successfully concluded. That success, however, was tempered by an engine-out anomaly, just 80 seconds after launch, which spelled disaster for a small Orbcomm piggyback satellite. Now, almost five months later, another Falcon 9 and fully-loaded Dragon stand ready at Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida—primed to restore an otherwise-proud reputation.

Liftoff of the CRS-2 mission is currently scheduled for 10:10 a.m. EDT, March 1, beginning an ambitious four-week voyage which will see the first use of Dragon’s unpressurized “Trunk” section to carry equipment and supplies. The whole Dragon measures 19.3 feet long and 12 feet wide. Some 1,490 pounds of cargo will be transported to the ISS, of which a little more than half is dedicated to ongoing scientific research. This includes a pair of General Laboratory Active Cryogenic ISS Experiment Refrigerators (GLACIER)—one powered and the other unpowered—to support multiple biological samples with thermal-control requirements between -160°C and +4°C. A spare electronics unit for one of the ISS’s Minus-Eighty Laboratory Freezers for ISS (MELFI), a Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) bed, and crew provisions will also be aboard.

The blunt pressurized capsule and unpressurized Trunk of CRS-2 are clearly visible in this processing view at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. Photo Credit: NASA/SpaceX

Attached to Dragon’s external Trunk will be two Heat Rejection Subsystem Grapple Fixtures (HRSGFs), which will provide grapple fixtures to enable the station’s Canadarm2 manipulator to interface with ISS radiators, should the need arise to repair or replace them. Shortly after CRS-2 arrives at the space station March 2—barely a day after rising from the United States’ East Coast—the Trunk external payloads will be robotically removed by Canadarm2, under the control of U.S. Operating Segment (USOS) crewmen Kevin Ford and Tom Marshburn. They will be temporarily housed on the Mobile Base System of the football-field-sized truss structure, to await installation on the S-1 and P-1 trusses during an EVA by Expedition 36 astronauts Chris Cassidy and Luca Parmitano in June–July.

Dragon’s return to Earth—and a splashdown in the waters of the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of southern California—is presently scheduled for March 25. The spacecraft’s recoverable re-entry capsule will bring more than 2,300 pounds of equipment and materials back to Earth, including a GLACIER freezer and several failed environmental control system components. In doing so, Dragon will demonstrate yet again its capacity to pick up some of the load from the now-retired space shuttle fleet, providing the United States with a home-grown upmass/downmass capability to and from the ISS.

The return of Dragon will come ten days after the return of Expedition 34’s Kevin Ford, Oleg Novitsky, and Yevgeni Tarelkin, who are due to land on the steppe of Kazakhstan March 15, concluding a five-month voyage which began last October. In the coming days, Ford will hand over command of the multi-national outpost to its first Canadian skipper, Chris Hadfield, who will lead the ISS into the summer of 2013.

Friday’s launch of CRS-2—also known as “SpX-2″ within the ISS Program, in recognition of SpaceX—will undoubtedly excite the company’s growing fanbase, following the anomalous rise to orbit of the previous Falcon 9 last October. One of the booster’s nine Merlin-1C engines on its first stage suffered a sudden pressure loss and an automatic shutdown command was issued; the other eight engines burned for an additional 30 seconds to compensate for the reduced thrust, thereby vindicating SpaceX’s claims about the Falcon’s ability to handle “engine-out” situations. “As designed, the flight computer then recomputed a new ascent profile in real time to reach the target orbit,” explained CEO Elon Musk in October, “which is why the burn times were a bit longer.”

This offered small comfort for a second-generation Orbcomm satellite, which was hitching a “piggyback” ride into orbit. Original plans called for the Falcon 9’s second stage to execute a short burn of its single Merlin-1C engine to raise its orbit and eject the Orbcomm, but since this burn was dependent upon the stage being sufficiently healthy it could not be performed. Consequently, the Orbcomm was deployed into an untenable, far-lower-than-intended 125 x 200-mile orbit, and it burned up in the atmosphere within a matter of days.

The first stage of the Falcon 9 for Friday’s mission undergoes checkout. Photo Credit: NASA/SpaceX

Following an investigation process into the engine-out anomaly, the Falcon 9 for CRS-2 arrived at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in late November and underwent a successful, two-minute static test-firing at SLC-40 yesterday (Monday, Feb. 25), as this article was being prepared. The static test got underway with the ignition of all nine Merlin-1C engines at 1:30 pm EST and appeared to proceed without incident. At the end of the test, shutdown commands were transmitted to all engines and standard safing procedures were executed. Friday’s launch will be preceded by a flurry of activity, due to culminate with the loading of rocket-grade kerosene (RP-1) and liquid oxygen aboard the Falcon about two hours ahead of liftoff. The vehicle will be transferred to internal power at T-4 minutes, after which the flight termination system—used to destroy the launch vehicle in the event of off-nominal events during ascent—will be armed and oxidizer levels topped-off. One minute before launch, SLC-40′s “Niagara” deluge system will flood the pad surface with 30,000 gallons of water to suppress acoustic waves radiating from the Merlin engine plumes.

Launching with a Dragon for the first time in the daylight hours, the Falcon’s nine engines will ignite, producing a combined 1.1 million pounds of thrust and providing the impulse for the first three minutes of the climb to orbit. Two of the engines will shut down at T+170 seconds to reduce the acceleration, with the other seven shutting down about 10 seconds later. By this stage, the Falcon will be at an altitude of 50 miles. After the burn-out and separation of the first stage, the single Merlin-1C of the second stage will ignite. It will fire for a total of 345 seconds, delivering Dragon into a preliminary orbit and setting it up for a rendezvous with the ISS, which is scheduled to take place the following day.

Following its return to the waters of the Pacific, 300 miles off Baja California, it appears that subsequent Dragon missions will take place at roughly six-month intervals, with CRS-3 tentatively scheduled to fly September 30 and CRS-4 in early April 2014. NASA’s contract with SpaceX calls for the company to stage 12 missions in total and deliver around 44,000 pounds of payload to the ISS.

Article reproduced courtesy of www.AmericaSpace.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=melaQzAn5zA

With just 128 days to go the $100,000,000 project is on track to be ready in time and features an impressive frontage. Access to the exhibit building is via a sweeping path made of embedded crawlerway pebbles, under the twin SRBs and External tank. Once in the building you will be taken through a series of exhibits and theatres before one last huge theatre and access to the last resting place of Space Shuttle Atlantis. 

Atlantis will be suspended in the hall in an attitude similar to that which she would have been in space. The payload doors will be open and there will be moving backdrops of the shuttle flying through space passing both the ISS and the Hubble Telescope.

After descending the curving ramp to the lower level visitors will be able to get a view of the shuttle from underneath, prior to exiting the exhibit via the massive merchandising hall.

There is still a lot of work to be done to meet the completion deadline but the data has been set and Atlantis will be displayed in her full glory in time for the summer vacation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6VuRtl6YWo

Video credit : NASA

This is the edited NASA video from todays Atlas V rocket launch from Vandenberg AFB in California.  The Atlas rocket carried the latest Landsat satellite LDCM into a polar orbit.