George Diller/Ares I-X Commentator: From the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, this is
Ares Launch Control at T-2 hours, 38 minutes, 15 seconds and counting.
Launch of the Ares I-X is on schedule for 8 a.m. Eastern time this morning at the opening of a four-hour launch window.
The countdown for the launch team began at 1 a.m. this morning.
The upper stage access arm is about to be retracted away from the vehicle.
And following that, the next major milestone in the countdown is the retraction of the
gantry-like rotating service structure at 5:25 a.m.,
which is providing much of the primary access to the lower portion of the vehicle.
Launch today is being controlled from the Young-Crippen Firing Room in the Launch
Control Center -- that is Firing Room 1 here at complex 39.
With the launch support team located at the Mission Director's Center on Cape
Canaveral Air Force Station in NASA Hangar AE.
The countdown began at 1 a.m. this morning when work to power up the Ares I-X flight test vehicle began.
Since then, guidance and navigation system checkout has been under way.
Also, purge umbilicals for the various environmental control systems that provide cool,
dry air are being disconnected from the vehicle -- that activity is just concluding.
And just completed is the alignment of the inertial navigation system, and navigation testing is now under way.
Coming up after the rotating service structure has been pulled back, the Tel-4 tracking station will align its antenna with the rocket,
and there will be a checkout of the tracking, data and telemetry systems.
And there'll also be some software checks of the flight computer, some of which are already under way.
Right now, checks with the Eastern Range have begun -- that began just a few minutes ago.
And also there will be a first-motion check, that's a verification of the sensor on the launch pad that verifies that
Ares I-X has in fact lifted off and the exact time that it lifted off.
Weather-wise our forecast is unchanged from what we've been seeing the last couple of days.
There is a 60 percent chance of not meeting the launch weather criteria,
primarily due to a chance for flight-through-precipitation and the
triboelectric rule that is a relatively unfamiliar flight rule to many.
And this essentially is dealing with a condition that's associated with a static
electricity of charging that can build up on the fairing that can disrupt signals.
At T-2 hours, 34 minutes, 17 seconds and counting, this is Ares Launch Control.