Keep the shuttle flying: Fwd: Atlas V set to launch this week

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From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: October 27, 2014 12:31:56 PM EDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: Atlas V set to launch this week

Space Notebook: Atlas V set to launch this week
James Dean, FLORIDA TODAY 3:01 p.m. EDT October 26, 2014

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket thunders to orbit with a classified satellite for the U.S. government on Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2014. (Photo: MALCOLM DENEMARK/FLORIDA TODAY)
(Photo: SSEP )

Air Force and United Launch Alliance managers will meet Monday to confirm an Atlas V rocket's readiness to launch the nation's next Global Positioning System satellite this week.
The launch is scheduled for 1:21 p.m. Wednesday, the opening of an 18-minute window at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 41.
The 19-story rocket is expected to roll to its pad Tuesday. The $245 million GPS IIF-8 spacecraft was attached to the rocket last Monday.
The mission will launch the eighth of 12 satellites in the newest series of Boeing-built GPS satellites, called IIF, and the fourth addition to the constellation this year.
Visit floridatoday.com at noon for a countdown chat and ULA's launch Webcast, which is scheduled to begin 20 minutes before liftoff.
Antares on the pad
The Atlas V launch could be the second from the East Coast this week.
NASA and Orbital Sciences Corp. last week confirmed plans for a 6:45 p.m. Monday launch of the next batch of International Space Station cargo by an Antares rocket and Cygnus spacecraft from Wallops Island, Virginia.
The decision came after inspectors found no damage to a key flight tracking station in Bermuda, which had been walloped by Hurricane Gonzalo. The rocket on Friday rolled to its pad at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport.
To learn more about the mission — Orbital's third of eight under a $1.9 billion resupply contract — tune into a preflight briefing at 1 p.m. today on NASA TV.
ISS wasted on students?
Student experiments earned scrutiny in a negative critique of the $100 billion International Space Station in U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn's (R-Okla.) latest "Wastebook," which highlights federal government spending the senator considers wasteful.
"While encouraging young people to take an interest in science is an important goal, the billions of dollars being borrowed to support space station science fair experiments could make a bigger impact in the lives of these and other children in many other more cost efficient ways," the report says.
Jeff Goldstein, director of the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education and its Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP), quickly responded, saying Coburn's take "is misinformed, and his math is dead wrong."
Goldstein described a competitive program whose 15 experiments flown over the summer were selected from 1,344 proposals involving more than 6,700 students in grades five to 12, providing inspiration and "a very authentic research experience."
Only $50,000 of the program's total $622,500 cost was federally funded. That came from the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, a NASA-funded, Kennedy Space Center-based nonprofit that manages the station's national lab and has a mandate to support STEM education initiatives.
"Why should these SSEP communities be provided access to ISS for worthy STEM education?" Goldstein wrote. "Because they helped pay to launch ISS, construct it, and operate it. Instead of lambasting the program, Sen. Coburn should hold SSEP up as a national model for an innovative and efficient government-private sector partnership in STEM education."
Odyssey moves on
The Space Florida manager responsible for attracting entrepreneurial "new space" activity to the state has left for a new job.
Allison Odyssey joined NewSpace Global, a market research and analysis firm, as chief operating officer.
Odyssey in February was named Space Florida's vice president of NewSpace market development, after seven years with the agency.
In a press release then, Space Florida CEO Frank DiBello described that market as "critical to Florida's future" and said Odyssey would act as the "primary liaison to NewSpace companies that may have interest in creating and/or expanding their operations in Florida."
No plans for a replacement have been confirmed yet.
NASA issues Orion "boarding pass"
Sign up by Friday to add your name to a dime-sized microchip NASA will fly aboard an Orion capsule during its first test flight in December.
In doing so, NASA says you'll be starting a frequent flyer mile adventure to Mars, where the agency hopes to send a crew in Orion by the 2030s.
"When we set foot on the Red Planet, we'll be exploring for all of humanity," said Mark Geyer, NASA's Orion program manager. "Flying these names will enable people to be part of our journey."
Orion is starting off with an unmanned, two-orbit test flight scheduled to be launched Dec. 4 by a Delta IV Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral.
Friday is the deadline to receive a "boarding pass" for the Exploration Flight Test-1 mission, but the public can continue to submit names for future flights by Orion and other Mars-bound science spacecraft.
"With each flight, selected individuals will accrue more miles as members of a global space-faring society," says a NASA press release.
To submit your name, visit http://mars.nasa.gov/participate/send-your-name/orion-first-flight/.
Contact Dean at 321-242-3668 or jdean@floridatoday.com.

Copyright © 2014 www.floridatoday.com. All rights reserved.

Atlas 5 to fly Wednesday, continuing rapid deployment of GPS satellites
October 25, 2014 by Justin Ray
File photo of Atlas 5 in the 401 configuration. Image: ULA.
Launching new Global Positioning System navigation satellites at a rate not seen in 21 years, this year's fourth such deployment is coming up at midday Wednesday by an Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral.
The United Launch Alliance booster is scheduled for liftoff at 1:21 p.m. EDT at the opening of an 18-minute window.
The $245 million GPS 2F-8 satellite will join the orbiting navigation network as the 31st functioning spacecraft – including four launched in 2014 – and 8 backups.
It has not been since 1993 that the Air Force launched four or more GPS birds in a single calendar year.
Now, booster availability coupled with the need to replenish the orbital fleet has allowed so many GPS satellites to come to the launch pad this year.
The lifting has been accomplished by a pair of Delta 4 rockets, launching from Cape Canaveral on Feb. 20 and May 16 plus an Atlas 5 rocket flown Aug. 1, respectively.
"It's been a very, very busy year, but it's been an energizing year in the sense (that) it's exciting to see results nearly real-time. We launch up a satellite and once it's put into the constellation we start seeing improvement in that accuracy. That's just an exciting feeling," said Col. Bill Cooley, director of the Air Force's Global Positioning System Directorate.
The Launch Readiness Review will be held Monday and the rocket rolls to the pad on Tuesday. The countdown starts at 6:21 a.m. Wednesday.
It will take three hours and 24 minutes from launch until spacecraft separation, delivering the satellite into an orbit 11,000 nautical miles high and tilted 55 degrees to the equator.
This will be the 50th Atlas 5 launch and the 89th overall for United Launch Alliance, a partnership between Boeing, builder of the Delta family or rockets, and Lockheed Martin, developer of the Atlas.
The mission patch to be featured on the Atlas 5 fairing. Credit: U.S. Air Force
"50 is amazing and we're very proud to have reached this milestone," said Ron Fortson, United Launch Alliance's deputy director of mission management. "But what really matters is the next one. That's what it is all about — one launch at a time."
Majestically clearing the towers at Complex 41, the Atlas-Centaur rocket will begin pitch, yaw and roll maneuvers to obtain the proper northeastward heading while minimizing aerodynamic stresses on the 189-foot-long rocket.
Atlas will push through Mach 1 in 78 seconds and the region of maximum air pressure at 91 seconds, as the RD-180 main engine consumes kerosene fuel and supercold liquid oxygen.
Approaching booster engine cutoff four minutes into flight, the vehicle is burning propellants at a rate of 1,600 pounds per second, weighing only a quarter of what it did at liftoff before the first stage separates and the Centaur lights.
It is a lengthy first firing of Centaur that parallels the eastern seaboard and flies above the North Atlantic, putting the vehicle into a preliminary orbit of 11,000 by 90 nautical miles.
There, the rocket coasts for three hours – crossing Europe, the Middle East and Indian Ocean – before restarting the RL10 main engine for 90 seconds south of Australia to circularize the orbit and enter the GPS constellation.
An artist's concept of a GPS Block 2F satellite. Credit: Boeing.
GPS 2F-8 will take Plane E, Slot 1 of the network in a shuffling plan that ultimately enhances the network. It should be checked out and operational in mid-December.
The satellite currently in that spot – GPS 2R-4, launched aboard Delta 278 in May 2000 – will be moved into a backup role.
This is the eighth of 12 Boeing-built Block 2F spacecraft being manufactured to form the backbone of the GPS fleet for the next 15 years. The full dozen satellites are due to be launched by January 2016.
Three more Block 2Fs are due to launch next year – in March aboard a Delta 4 and in June and September aboard Atlas 5s

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