GEORGE DILLER: This is Atlas launch control at T minus 50 minutes and counting, with a single 10-minute, built-in hold remaining. That means
we are exactly one hour from the launch of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on a Lockheed Martin Atlas V rocket from Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral.
At this point, liquid oxygen on the Atlas stage 77 percent full, we're at flight level on the Centaur, and preparing for the loading of
the liquid hydrogen onto the Centaur very shortly. We're joined now by Tammy Harrington, the mission integration manager for NASA at
the Kennedy Space Center who's been busy working the integrated operations on the MRO spacecraft and the Atlas V for quite some time.
Tammy, welcome, and about when did Kennedy Space Center actually start preparing for this launch?
TAMMY HARRINGTON: Actually, the Launch Services Program began working with the MRO project about four and a half years ago, and it
began with the exercise to actually buy the launch vehicle and select launch vehicle that would be appropriate for sending it on its mission to Mars.
DILLER: And then, the team that you work with has a lot to do with the interface requirements, do they not, between the Atlas and the
spacecraft? What do they need to be compatible to work together?
HARRINGTON: Correct. We manage the process by which the launch vehicle and the spacecraft actually come together, and we have to
determine what needs to be done on the launch vehicle in order to accommodate the spacecraft and how the spacecraft basically has to be
designed in order to fly successfully on the launch vehicle on its mission to Mars. DILLER: So what, what was the main thing in choosing an
Atlas V? What are some of the things that led NASA to believe that that was the right vehicle to fly this mission?
HARRINGTON: Basically, we put together a list of requirements on the spacecraft side related to the, you know, performance that's required, and
due to the mass of the spacecraft and the instruments that it wanted to fly. We also looked at the trajectory that it needed to fly in order to get to
Mars. And the Atlas V proved to be a very good match with meeting all those requirements, in addition to the other special accommodations that
the spacecraft required in its processing.
DILLER: We're going to look at some video now of the Atlas V processing, the Atlas and the Centaur, beginning with their arrival. And Tammy, if
you can talk us through this. HARRINGTON: Sure. Here you see the arrival of the Russian Antonov cargo plane arriving on March 31st of this
year. It brought the first of the launch vehicle hardware that was going to be here for processing for MRO. It is known as the common core
booster, which is the first stage of the Atlas V. It arrived at the skid strip at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
The common core booster is built by Lockheed Martin in Denver, and here you see the process by which it was loaded off of the airplane and
placed on the flatbed truck in order to begin its roll to the Atlas Spaceflight Operations Center. This is the trip that it took to get to the high bay,
and the ASOC previously was used for Titan IV solid rocket motor processing and it went through a facelift and an expansion in order to
accommodate the Atlas V. Here you see it moving into the high bay, where it performed powered-on testing of the stages and is stored until it
rolls out to the Vertical Integration Facility, which you see here.
This process actually occurred on May 6, and where it took its 4.1-mile trip out to the Vertical Integration Facility. The picture you saw there was
of the, the actual Vertical Integration Facility is 293 feet tall, and this is where the rockets actually come together. It's located about 1,800 feet
from the actual pad where the mission will be launched from. It features a 60-ton crane which will hoist the segments of the Atlas V up to the
Mobile Launch Platform. This Vertical Integration Facility is designed to withstand 140 mile an hour hurricane winds, and it has seven automated,
moveable platforms to allow access to various areas of the rocket. Now this common core booster is 12-1/2 feet in diameter and it's about 106
feet tall, and there you see a picture of the Russian-built, RD-180 engines, which actually power this stage of the launch vehicle. It is fueled by
liquid oxygen and an RP-1 kerosene mix, and it will provide a liftoff thrust of 860,000 pounds. There is approximately 450,000 pounds of liquid
oxygen that will be placed onboard this stage, as well as 169,000 pounds of RP-1, and here you see the process by which this was placed in its
Vertical Integration Facility and waiting for the next piece of hardware to arrive.
This hardware, this picture here is, shows the arrival of the Russian Antonov plane yet again on the sixth of June, and this is where the Centaur
upper stage came in, which is the workhorse of the Atlas Program, and once again it is shown taking off to go toward the Atlas Spaceflight
Operations Center high bay. Once again, it would undergo prehoist testing prior to its move to the VIF, which occurred on the 17th of June. The
Centaur for this is actually 10 feet in diameter. It's a structurally stable booster, and it's over 41 feet in length. Here you see the Vertical
Integration Facility doors rolling up, which are approximately 41 feet wide and 270 feet tall. They are reinforced fabric doors that will move up to
allow for the individual Atlas V stages to be lifted up into the building. Now the Centaur, there you see the designation of our mission here, the
Atlas V 007 is the tail number for the MRO mission. This Centaur is powered by an individual RL-10 Pratt and Whitney engine, and it is fueled by
liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen and provides about 22,000 pounds of thrust. It is a restartable engine and is capable of multiple firings in space
separated by coast phases. Now for the MRO mission, we actually will perform two Centaur burns. The first one will last about nine minutes to
inject the Centaur in a parking orbit, where it will coast for about 30 minutes to its, an optimal position prior to the start of the second burn, which
lasts for about five. And there you see the final configuration with the first two stages together. The next series of pictures you'll see here are
sequences of an Atlas V wet dress rehearsal. We actually performed two of these dress rehearsals for the MRO mission, one on July 7 and one
on July 19. This is a test of the simulation of prelaunch countdown operations, as well as a fueling of the rocket. The Atlas V launches are
controlled from the Atlas Spaceflight Operations Center, which houses the launch control center you see here, all the officials, the engineering
team and customers that execute the countdown are actually in this facility during the countdown itself as well as during the tests, which were
known as the wet dress rehearsal. And there you see the final configuration upon fueling of the rocket, it's pretty unique here from the fact that
the spacecraft, encapsulated in its fairing, had yet to be placed on top of the vehicle. That process began here in the early morning hours of July
28th, where you see the MRO spacecraft encapsulated in its fairing and rolling out to the Vertical Integration Facility. And there it goes by the
Shuttle, Vehicle Assembly Building on its way there. The vehicle had been processed previously at the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility
since the April timeframe, and it went through a series of tests in order to verify its readiness for encapsulation and eventually for launch, and on
the way out to the pad, we had to monitor and maintain all the environments and the fairing in order to make sure that the instruments were
actually safe and secure and maintained at the temperatures and humidity requirements that they needed. The version of the fairing that we
actually fly for the MRO mission is a four-meter fairing, which is about 14-feet in diameter and about 40 feet long. It's built by Lockheed Martin in
Harlington, Texas. Obviously, you can see that the, the, given its relative size, it's a pretty large spacecraft that's encapsulated there. And in its
final configuration, it's 188 feet high and it has a gross liftoff weight of 740,000 pounds. DILLER: Okay. After it's on top of the rocket, what are the
things that they have to do from that point to launch? HARRINGTON: Actually, we underwent a series of integrated systems tests which were to
verify the electrical compatibility between the launch vehicle and the rocket, and the spacecraft itself also went through battery conditioning and
reconditioning, as well as cover removals and then some functional testing, as well, to verify its systems were functioning nominally in order to
get us to this point today. DILLER: Has the spacecraft got their own set of tests that they have to complete, as well, or is it all an integrated thing?
HARRINGTON: Some of them are integrated and some of them are separate. There were some integrated things where they electrically, but
there were also things that the spacecraft had to do individually. DILLER: Well, Tammy, thank you very much. I'm sure you're looking forward to
see the fire in the hole, as everyone calls it, and thank you very much for talking with us. HARRINGTON: Thanks, George.