GEORGE DILLER: With us now is Omar Baez, the NASA launch director for today's mission. And Omar, first of all, tell us what you know about the
flight. How, how did it go from separation or from the drop up through separation, and the kind of orbit we're in?
OMAR BAEZ: The flight appears good. We're hitting all the parameters we needed to hit as far as our orbital requirements. The flight went
really, and you heard it being voiced, it was nominal, and the spacecraft is power positive. The solar arrays have started deploying
and they're in the right place, so you can't call it any better than that. As far as drop, we were 3.7 seconds off of what we had
calculated when we were on the ground, and our launch pad is moving at close to 500 miles an hour, so that's not too bad.
DILLER: How did the, the countdown go?
BAEZ: The countdown was very smooth. We had a hiccup at first. One of our telemetry aircraft, the P-3 out of Point Mugu had some engine trouble
and we knew that they wouldn't be able to make the mission support point in the time allotted. So we waived that requirement. It was
to be able to get indication of the spacecraft separating from the third stage and, luckily, we were able to get it from the ground
station that, that was covering. So we did
get confirmation from a ground station and we did get confirmation from the spacecraft itself that it separated. Otherwise, the
count went well. We had a
small intrusion into the drop box by a freighter, and that was early on before we took off. That was cleared in time. But we worked
virtually no technical issues, both on the spacecraft side or the launch vehicle on the, during the countdown.
DILLER: Well, I guess it's at that point now, we kind of take a look forward, I guess. Back at the Cape, we have two rather
high-profile missions coming up. Can you tell us what they are and about when they'll be launched?
BAEZ: Sure. Our first one is Dawn, scheduled for June 30, and then we've got a mission to Mars, Phoenix, scheduled for Aug. 3. And I
almost forgot, this is the 50th launch for the Launch Services Program. DILLER: It is indeed.
BAEZ: AIM is the 50th launch since this program was first put together in 1998, so it's one of those milestones for us that may seem
unimportant but, at times, 50 sounds like a good number. And we look forward to our next successful launch.
DILLER: Well, Omar, thank you very much and congratulations. And of course, we're looking forward to more Pegasus flights next year,
as well as our Delta launches back at the Cape that are coming up. So, thanks very much.
BAEZ: Thank you, George.