GEORGE DILLER: We're here now with Omar Baez, the NASA launch manager for tonight's mission,
and Omar, you must be feeling pretty good right now. The flight looked pretty good, it seemed.
OMAR BAEZ: The flight went as planned. The satellite's in its intended orbit
and everything went pretty smoothly with the count today.
DILLER: So as far as getting us a ride into space, I guess we hit that one across the fence,
so I guess now we just wait another half hour to hear from the spacecraft.
BAEZ: That's correct.
DILLER: The countdown appeared to be going quite smoothly overall 'til we got up to the end and,
and there were a couple of things. Just kind of cover that a little bit, if you would.
BAEZ: Sure. One of the things we had was one of our gas bottles that we use for controlling the,
the boosters, a little bit low. And due to the temperature, the colder temperatures today,
it was loaded to a smaller level than we'd like to see for flight.
So we had to release some of that gas, bring it to a lower temperature and then put
in a little bit warmer gas in there to get our proper flight load. That was about the only technical
issue of any significance during the, during the count.
The, the other issue we ran into kind of late was the threat of the,
our toxics assessment going bad and that was over a certain area of the Port.
The Range was able to clear that area; it was government personnel which they could control
and shelter, and we were able to waive that and proceed with our, our launch countdown.
We did have to retarget for the end of the window and we went
through all the motions and got off at 8:52.
DILLER: So it turned out to be just a, a good strategy.
Well, I guess that's probably it this year for the expendable launches. What's coming up first of next year?
BAEZ: The next would be THEMIS out of this coast on a Delta II, and our expected date for that,
which hasn't been finalized, is mid-February right now.
DILLER: Alright. And I guess we've got a couple of very exciting launches, I guess,
coming on later in the summer, not the least of which is another Mars lander.
BAEZ: Yes, sir. And before that Mars lander, we, we've got another Pegasus
out at Vandenberg called AIM, which we should get done towards the end of March.
DILLER: So, we'll be going into next year with two very interesting missions fairly soon,
and more before the end of the year. And at this point, I guess we can sort of
give some kudos to the team that designed and operated this new Mission Director's Center
for us tonight, because this has really been a, a very enjoyable facility to work
in this evening and Omar, how do you think the team was able to respond to all the new accoutrements that we have?
BAEZ: It was kind of interesting, because during the count, I noticed that we were playing,
replaying some of the video of the old Mission Director's Center and I had gotten
accustomed to this and just a couple of sims in here and in today's count,
and, and so the transition for me was obviously easy.
And I do like the new accommodations and I do have to give kudos to the team that were able to,
to spruce up this building with, with a heck of a lot of history here,
and be able to make it look a little bit modernized.
DILLER: Well, hopefully this facility will be going for as long as the last one was.
So, Omar, thank you very much.
BAEZ: Appreciate it, George. Thank you.
DILLER: And with that, that will conclude our launch coverage for the STEREO launch tonight.
With STEREO having successfully separated from the Delta II launch vehicle,
the orbit was right on target, we will end our coverage this evening.
From the Mission Director's Center at Cape Canaveral in Florida, this is Delta Launch Control.