George Diller/OSTM/Jason-2 Launch Commentator: This is Delta Launch Control
at T-one hour, 6 minutes, 48 seconds and counting. Here at the public affairs console in the Mission Director's Center.
With us is Parag Vaze, he is the project manager from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for the OSTM/Jason-2 spacecraft.
Parag Vaze/OSTM/Jason-2 Project Manager, Jet Propulsion Laboratory OK, so here you can see the
Delta II rocket taking off, once it goes through its primary flight. Here the main engine is still running.
The solid rocket boosters, which you've got three of them, they'll come off the vehicle, basically get us into space.
The first stage comes off, the second stage will light up again after some time, take us to another position in our orbit.
The fairing comes off. Then we've got the rocket second stage and the spacecraft separating here.
Then we're on our way to our final orbit where the first thing the spacecraft will do is deploy its solar panels and get ourselves
oriented to the sun, so that we can get that first juice of energy from the sun. Get the batteries charged up, the spacecraft on,
and then get back to the earth to start the rest of our commissioning process with spacecraft operations,
and then followed by all the instruments coming on.
You'll see here the primary instrument, with this kind of red ring bouncing off the water,
back and forth, that's the altimeter. And then the other various instruments getting signals back and forth from earth,
and sending the data back down for our scientists to collect.
George Diller/OSTM/Jason-2 Launch Commentator: Well how soon after the spacecraft is on orbit,
will the science actually begin
coming back with what the investigators are looking for?
Parag Vaze/OSTM/Jason-2 Project Manager, Jet Propulsion Laboratory Right. Well, first of all we kind of go through two
processes. One is an engineering checkout of all the instruments and payload.
We plan to turn on all the instruments within about three days after launch.
So we will start a period of about two months, where we'll check out the whole spacecraft and the payload.
About three days afterward we should have pretty good idea that all the instruments are running fine.
We still need to get into our final orbit. We expect to do that with some orbit-raising
maneuvers over the course of about two weeks.
So we expect within a month, to start getting really precise data back out to the ground and start processing it.
George Diller/OSTM/Jason-2 Launch Commentator: Well, we do have something that will be a little bit of a treat for us tonight.
When we get to spacecraft separation, we may actually see that. Is that correct?
Parag Vaze/OSTM/Jason-2 Project Manager, Jet Propulsion Laboratory We're
very hopeful that we'll all get a good glimpse of
not only the spacecraft separating but the solar panels deploying.
With a camera that's on the Delta II second stage, looking back up towards the spacecraft,
so we fully expect to get a really good glimpse of the spacecraft and the solar panels deploying.
George Diller/OSTM/Jason-2 Launch Commentator: About how soon after
separation would the solar arrays start their deployment activity?
Parag Vaze/OSTM/Jason-2 Project Manager, Jet Propulsion Laboratory Within a minute or so.
George Diller/OSTM/Jason-2 Launch Commentator: Very quickly. Parag Vaze/OSTM/Jason-2 Project
Manager, Jet Propulsion Laboratory Within a minute we expect the spacecraft's first operation,
essentially that as soon as it recognizes that we've separated properly,
is to turn on the radio transponder and then also to deploy the solar panels,
one at a time. And that should finish within a span of a few minutes.
George Diller/OSTM/Jason-2 Launch Commentator: Well Parag, thank you very much.
We'll be looking forward to that. I'm certainly sure that your team is looking forward to seeing that moment as well.
Parag Vaze/OSTM/Jason-2 Project Manager, Jet Propulsion Laboratory We're all very anxious.
George Diller/OSTM/Jason-2 Launch Commentator: Thanks very much.
T-one hour, 24 minutes, 41 second and counting. This is Delta Launch Control.