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George Diller/OSTM/Jason-2 Launch Commentator: Well, let's look now at some

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video tape of the Delta II rocket being prepared for flight. If we could go ahead and roll that tape,

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and Armando tell us about some of what we're seeing.

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Armando Piloto/LSP Mission Manager: Ok George, I would be happy to do that.

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OK what we're seeing here is a picture-perfect view of slip two, here at Vandenberg,

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prior to the beginning of the stacking of the Delta II in preparation for the OSTM mission.

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This pad actually is a NASA owned facility here on the West Coast,

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that we use very regularly to launch missions out of this coast.

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So, what we're seeing here is the first stage being transported to the pad,

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in preparation for mating it to the launch mount. As you saw there on video,

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the first stage was transported in the horizontal position. So what the technicians,

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the ULA technicians, are doing is using the main frame from the mobile service tower,

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and they're slowly lifting the stage into the upright position. Some details about the first stage,

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is that it uses a Rocketdyne Ares 27 main engine. This particular engine provides about 237,000

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pounds of thrust and it operates on liquid oxygen and RP1. Here we're almost close to lifting the stage out of the transporter.

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Another piece of information about the first stage is that it contains two vernier engines.

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These are small rockets, motors that provide for roll control during the flight.

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What has happened here, is that they have been lifted and it's now stored inside the mobile service tower.

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The mobile service tower has wheels on the bottom.

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Once this stage is safely secure the tower will be slowly rolled and positioned on top

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of the launch mount and then the stage will be softly brought down and mated to the launch mount.

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George Diller/OSTM/Jason-2 Launch Commentator: That's actually the launcher itself, is what you mean by launch mount?

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Armando Piloto/LSP Mission Manager: That's right. And here the technicians are installing the guide pins.

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Once all those guide pins are in place, the stage will be sat down on top of the six legs there on the launch mount.

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They're doing some final inspections, making sure that there's proper clearance and that everything got installed properly.

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The next part of the flow involved in stacking a Delta II vehicle is the mating of the solid rocket motors.

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For our mission we're using the standard 40-inch-in-diameter solid rocket motors.

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We only need to use three of them. Our mission doesn't require as much performance.

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That's the reason only three solids are used. The Delta II offers the option of flying either three, four, or nine solids.

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All of these three solids will be actually ignited at liftoff and they will burn for approximately 64 seconds.

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And then we're going to hold on to them for a little bit longer, because of the oil rigs off the coast of California.

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And then we will jettison them about 99 seconds after liftoff. The next part of the flow that we are seeing here is the view of the

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Delta II second stage being transported to the pad.

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The second stage will actually be mated on top of the inner stage. This particular video didn't capture the inner stage being mated.

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But at this point of the flow, it should already be there.

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What we're seeing is the hoisting operation involved to mate the second stage.

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George Diller/OSTM/Jason-2 Launch Commentator: So what's going to

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happen is the second stage will slide down into the inner stage, which is on top of the first stage.

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Armando Piloto/LSP Mission Manager: That's correct, and that's what we're actually seeing in this particular video.

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The second stage actually holds a lot of our, the computer, the main computer,

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for the Delta II and also houses a lot of the electronics. And here is a view of the stage being softly mated to the inner stage.

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OK this particular view was captured the morning when the spacecraft was brought to the pad.

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This is, from my perspective, when things get very exciting and very interesting because it signifies such a significant milestone.

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This particular operation happened on June 9 which was actually about a week later than we had originally planned.

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We had a week here at Vandenberg, where everyday we had very high winds, so this operation kept being scrubbed.

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But fortunately this particular morning, everything worked out and the spacecraft was brought

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over and we're seeing what transpired that particular morning.

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The can here is being brought down and that's going to be mated right on top of the second stage.

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And what the technicians are doing there, is removing the contamination protection bags that are in place,

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before they mate it to the second stage. That's a view there, of our two mechanical engineers from the LSP program.

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And here the stage is being bolted down. OK this particular scene was taken

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after the transportation can was removed and the spacecraft was in bag.

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What appears to be happening here is the mating of the payload fairing.

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The purpose of the fairing is essentially to shield the spacecraft during flight from aerodynamic heating.

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For our mission, we're using what we refer to a 10 ft composite fairing.

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It has two mission-unique access holes.

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The next step here is that the fairing will be mated and completely buttoned up.

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