From the Atlas Space Operations Center at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, this is Atlas Launch
Control, and we are at T-2 hours and holding in our launch today of the New Horizons spacecraft to the
planet Pluto. Operations here at the Atlas Space Operations Center, or the ASOC, on Cape Canaveral
Air Force Station are going well today for the launch of New Horizons. The spacecraft will be
launched aboard a Lockheed Martin Atlas V vehicle. Liftoff is scheduled to occur on time today at 1:08
p.m. Eastern time from Launch Complex 41. This is the third day of launch attempts for this mission.
The first attempt ended in a scrub at the end of the launch window two days ago, due to unacceptable
high winds at the launch pad. Our attempt yesterday ended before cryogenic fueling even began, due
to a power outage at the Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland. Yesterday, severe storms in the
Baltimore/Washington, D.C. area knocked out power to several locations, including the campus of the
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., and this is where the New
Horizons spacecraft will be operated from in flight. With our primary power out, the New Horizons
Mission Operations Center was only on backup power. But the New Horizons mission managers
wanted to have sufficient backup to those systems in order to conduct the critical launch and early
flight operations. Reports came in late yesterday that the power outage that they had experienced were,
had been restored, and the laboratory was back up on full power and had full redundant power, as well.
So, we're back here today for another launch attempt. Everything continues to go well and on schedule,
with no technical issues being addressed at this time. The weather was just briefed to the management
team and all criteria are presently green on the weather front. There is a, there was a frontal cold
system that passed through over the past day or so, and that is well to the south of us and will not be a
factor for our operations today. So, for, the forecast for launch time is that we'll have scattered clouds,
temperatures will be about 65 degrees. No rain is in the forecast, so that will not be a concern for us.
The winds are going to be from the due east, 14 knots gusting to 20 knots, so that also is within our, our
limits. There, the forecast right now, forecasters are indicating that we are looking at only a 20 percent
chance of violation, and that's due primarily to the slight possibility of having low clouds. But
presently, all criteria are reported green and weather is good to go and forecast good to go. Coming up
in the next half hour or so, we'll begin tanking of the Atlas stage, the first stage of the Atlas rocket, as
well as the Centaur stage, which is the second stage of this vehicle. Tanking will begin at about 11:08
and extend for about an hour beyond that. We have several polls that are to yet be conducted by our
mission management and launch management team. They'll be conducted as we head toward our
targeted launch time of 1:08 p.m. today. Coming up in the next 15 minutes or so will be the next poll,
to check the readiness of the team to begin the cryogenic loading operations of the Atlas and the
Centaur stages. Again, that poll will be conducted by the launch manager, Omar Baez, in about 15
minutes. So, no issues to report, no technical issues. Everything has been running fairly smoothly today
at Complex 41. Certainly no showstoppers that would keep us from launching on time. Our window
extends for 1 hour, 59 minutes, so the window today is from 1:08 to 3:07 p.m. Eastern time. At T-2
hours and holding, this is Atlas launch control.