Tracy Young/Launch Commentator: Joining me now is NASA Launch Manager Omar Baez.
Good morning, Omar, and congratulations to you and the team.
Omar Baez/NASA Launch Manager: Well, good morning. Thank you.
Tracy Young/Launch Commentator: Well, everything seemed to go very smoothly with the count.
Can you give us a little recap of the activities?
Omar Baez/NASA Launch Manager: Yeah, absolutely. The team came in about 3 in the morning.
We weren't looking at any launch vehicle issues, or any issues with the range or the spacecraft.
Nice smooth countdown. We had a little bit of drama toward the end there with upper-level winds
taking us out of our range there and getting us "red."
But as soon as we loaded a new steering component into there and used a different load relief,
we were able to get back in the "green" and get the "go" to launch.
And it's been a smooth launch. First and second stage and into separation.
And a little while ago, we saw the video of the spacecraft separating and they tell us that the solar arrays did deploy.
So, exciting and the team is jubilant from what I can see in the control room.
Tracy Young/Launch Commentator: Absolutely. Well, it took a long time to get to this point today.
Can you tell me a little about the great team involved in launch?
Omar Baez/NASA Launch Manager: Absolutely. This is, like all launches, this is a big team.
It's a team effort from the NASA team, our sponsoring center, which is for this one is JPL, NASA Headquarters,
Science Mission Directorate, Earth science portion of it, and our CONAE and Argentine partners for this mission.
There's a contingence of international partners, too, with instruments on it.
So it makes for great complexity, a lot of distances and cultural changes, but we get it all together here.
It takes a little bit more time and a lot more coordination.
And this is stuff that is good for the global community, so a great job by all and this will be good for all of us.
Tracy Young/Launch Commentator: Well, Omar, thank you for taking time to stop by this morning.
And, again, congratulations to you and the team.
Omar Baez/NASA Launch Manager: Thank you very much.
Tracy Young/Launch Commentator: To recap this morning's events, we had an on time launch of the Aquarius/SAC-D spacecraft
aboard a Delta II rocket at 7:20:13 a.m. Pacific time from Space Launch Complex-2 on Vandenberg Air Force Base.
This will conclude our live launch coverage. For more information on NASA's Aquarius mission, visit www.nasa.gov/aquarius.
From the Mission Director's Center on Vandenberg Air Force Base,
at launch plus one hour, eight minutes, this is Delta Launch Control.