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GEORGE DILLER: We're here now with Omar Baez, the NASA launch manager for tonight's mission,

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and Omar, you must be feeling pretty good right now. The flight looked pretty good, it seemed.

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OMAR BAEZ: The flight went as planned. The satellite's in its intended orbit

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and everything went pretty smoothly with the count today.

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DILLER: So as far as getting us a ride into space, I guess we hit that one across the fence,

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so I guess now we just wait another half hour to hear from the spacecraft.

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BAEZ: That's correct.

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DILLER: The countdown appeared to be going quite smoothly overall 'til we got up to the end and,

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and there were a couple of things. Just kind of cover that a little bit, if you would.

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BAEZ: Sure. One of the things we had was one of our gas bottles that we use for controlling the,

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the boosters, a little bit low. And due to the temperature, the colder temperatures today,

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it was loaded to a smaller level than we'd like to see for flight.

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So we had to release some of that gas, bring it to a lower temperature and then put

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in a little bit warmer gas in there to get our proper flight load. That was about the only technical

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issue of any significance during the, during the count.

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The, the other issue we ran into kind of late was the threat of the,

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our toxics assessment going bad and that was over a certain area of the Port.

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The Range was able to clear that area; it was government personnel which they could control

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and shelter, and we were able to waive that and proceed with our, our launch countdown.

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We did have to retarget for the end of the window and we went

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through all the motions and got off at 8:52.

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DILLER: So it turned out to be just a, a good strategy.

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Well, I guess that's probably it this year for the expendable launches. What's coming up first of next year?

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BAEZ: The next would be THEMIS out of this coast on a Delta II, and our expected date for that,

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which hasn't been finalized, is mid-February right now.

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DILLER: Alright. And I guess we've got a couple of very exciting launches, I guess,

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coming on later in the summer, not the least of which is another Mars lander.

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BAEZ: Yes, sir. And before that Mars lander, we, we've got another Pegasus

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out at Vandenberg called AIM, which we should get done towards the end of March.

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DILLER: So, we'll be going into next year with two very interesting missions fairly soon,

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and more before the end of the year. And at this point, I guess we can sort of

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give some kudos to the team that designed and operated this new Mission Director's Center

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for us tonight, because this has really been a, a very enjoyable facility to work

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in this evening and Omar, how do you think the team was able to respond to all the new accoutrements that we have?

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BAEZ: It was kind of interesting, because during the count, I noticed that we were playing,

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replaying some of the video of the old Mission Director's Center and I had gotten

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accustomed to this and just a couple of sims in here and in today's count,

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and, and so the transition for me was obviously easy.

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And I do like the new accommodations and I do have to give kudos to the team that were able to,

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to spruce up this building with, with a heck of a lot of history here,

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and be able to make it look a little bit modernized.

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DILLER: Well, hopefully this facility will be going for as long as the last one was.

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So, Omar, thank you very much.

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BAEZ: Appreciate it, George. Thank you.

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DILLER: And with that, that will conclude our launch coverage for the STEREO launch tonight.

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With STEREO having successfully separated from the Delta II launch vehicle,

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the orbit was right on target, we will end our coverage this evening.

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From the Mission Director's Center at Cape Canaveral in Florida, this is Delta Launch Control.

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