GEORGE DILLER: This is Pegasus Launch Control at launch minus 28 minutes, 33 seconds and counting.
With us now is Jim Russell, who is the AIM principal investigator for Hampton University. Welcome,
Jim, and first of all, tell us what, what Hampton's University, what the university role primarily is with AIM.
JAMES RUSSELL: Hampton University is the prime contractor for this mission. We have responsibility for the entire mission,
including all the instruments, the satellite and interfacing with the launch vehicle. And of course,
we also have the project data center, which will be the center where all the data will flow to and be available to the community.
And in addition to that, the main Web point for interfacing all the information for
the mission will be at Hampton University. And in addition to that, we're
coordinating the science for the mission, and we'll be leading the data reduction.
DILLER: Well, can you tell us real briefly why AIM is so important, particularly right now?
RUSSELL: The reason that AIM is important is that we see changes occurring in the atmosphere that we don't understand.
We see these noctilucent clouds that we are studying with this mission that are increasing in frequency.
They are getting brighter and they're seen at lower latitudes than ever before, and we need to understand this.
We need to know why it's happening, what the relationship is to global change and to what we're doing to our atmosphere.
DILLER: We have some animation now that will go into some of what AIM is going to do,
so if we could roll that and, Jim, if you could tell us what we're seeing as we go along.
RUSSELL: What we're seeing here is the reason we call these clouds noctilucent, or night shining.
The clouds are very high, 50 miles above the Earth's surface, and so when the sun sets below the horizon and
someone is standing in darkness, they'll still see these very bright, shiny,
iridescent clouds because they are so high up above the Earth's surface.
What we're seeing in this video, of course, is the Pegasus being dropped from the Lockheed 1011 aircraft,
going on its way into orbit. It's now, you're seeing the first-stage burn out, second-stage ignition.
Very soon here, we'll see the second-stage separation and third-stage ignition. There goes the fairing
coming off, exposing the AIM satellite. You see the solar arrays wrapped around the satellite as it passes by.
Stage-two burnout, and soon we'll have stage-three ignition to carry the payload the rest of the way into its
final orbit of 600 kilometers above the Earth's surface. We'll be going into polar orbit with this mission,
in order to be able to cover the high latitude region. So there we have separation of the third stage.
The AIM spacecraft on top is one of the instruments. Now we're going to see shortly here the solar panels unfurl.
There's its first stage with the process. There goes the second and, shortly, the third stage,
where the solar arrays will be deployed, and then the last step will be to tilt them
about 34 degrees to be in the best position to view the sun.
Here we now see the spacecraft coming around the Earth, coming into view here. As you can see,
they're now in their tilted position, for the best position with respect to the sun. And at this point,
you can see the instruments below. One looks at the sun, one takes very high-
resolution pictures below the spacecraft, and one above, which is for measuring dust coming in.
This shows the three instruments. This is the CIPSE, cloud imaging and particle size experiment,
four cameras, very high-resolution cameras. Next is the SOPHIE, solar occultation for ice experiment.
It looks at the sun to get its information. And then the third, on the top, is a cosmic-dust experiment.
Those rectangles you see are dust-particle counters.
Here we see some very beautiful photographs of these clouds, and you can see not only very important scientifically,
but you can see what they are to the eye. Very much variable, a lot of information in them
about the dynamics of the atmosphere. Clearly a lot of water vapor.
And you can see some of the reasons why these clouds catch the imagination of anyone who views them.
This is a photograph taken by astronaut Don Pettit, who was a space station science officer.
He took it from the space station. Here's another ground shot taken by ground observers.
And then here's another very beautiful image that you can see where it looks like
they're flowing from this mountain, but they're not, of course.
DILLER: And, and again, these clouds are how high? RUSSELL: Fifty miles.
DILLER: Fifty miles. Most clouds are, you know, below 50,000 feet, so they’re very high.
RUSSELL: Yes. DILLER: There's, launching as we are right now in April, is there a time frame coming
up that's particularly important to get some observations about the noctilucent clouds?
RUSSELL: Yes. The cloud season begins around mid-May and it goes until mid-August in the northern hemisphere,
and mid-November to mid-March in the southern hemisphere. So we're launching at a very
good time to observe this season, this summer season here in the north.
DILLER: And, then let's see. How long is the mission, the total number of...
RUSSELL: The mission is funded for two years. We're in a 600-kilometer orbit, so the satellite will remain
there for 10 or 11 years, so we'll be petitioning NASA very soon, after launch, once we know everything is working,
to grant us an extended mission beyond the two years.
DILLER: Well, Jim, thank you very much, and I'm sure you'll be very happy when you see the Pegasus drop from that aircraft.
Everybody will be holding their breath for 10 minutes, but then you're going to be
knowing things fairly shortly after separation, how the spacecraft is.
RUSSELL: Yes, we'll, very quickly. We, just seconds after spacecraft separation, there are break-wires that break,
and that they then turn on the transceiver on the satellite.
We have the tracking and data relay satellite system connection up and running and ready for us.
So we'll immediately begin transmitting. Solar arrays will deploy in 20 minutes or so, so we'll know very quickly.
When it comes around to the ascending node, into the daylight on the daylight side of the orbit,
then we'll know that it's tracking the sun. So in very short order, in
less than orbit, we'll know what the shape of the spacecraft is.
DILLER: Well, Jim, thank you very much and best of luck over the next two years (and hopefully longer).
RUSSELL: Thank you very much, George.
DILLER: At 21 minutes now before the launch of the Pegasus rocket with the AIM spacecraft, this is Pegasus Launch Control.