George Diller/NASA Launch Commentator From Vandenberg Air Force Base in California,
this is Taurus Launch Control at T-1 hour, 31 minutes, 19 seconds and counting.
We are now less than two hours away from the launch of the Taurus XL rocket
with NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory, or OCO.
The Taurus will initially place the spacecraft in a polar low-Earth orbit of 398 miles, at an inclination of 97.9 degrees.
The spacecraft will then go through a gradual orbit-raising sequence to a final mission altitude of 438 statute miles,
at an inclination of 98.2 degrees, orbiting the Earth every 99 minutes.
The countdown here in the Mission Director's Center began at 10:31 p.m. PST., for our targeted T-0 liftoff time of 1:51 a.m.
Since that time, the launch pad has been cleared of all personnel.
There had been initial interface checks with systems on the Western Range
and the Taurus avionics systems had been turned on and checked out.
Also at this time, we are running data-flow tests with the P3 tracking aircraft downrange over the Pacific,
and we have just completed some successful data flows with the Poker Flat's tracking station in
Alaska that will be providing critical state-of-health information from the spacecraft after launch.
The Taurus XL 3110 being launched tonight is a four-stage rocket manufactured by Orbital Sciences Corp.
The first stage, known as Stage 0, is a Castor 120 solid rocket booster, weighing more than 60 tons alone.
There are then the three stages of the Taurus rocket stacked atop.
The Taurus can carry up to 3,000 pounds into low-Earth orbit.
OCO will be the eighth launch of a Taurus. The Taurus XL as we see it here on
the launch pad with OCO today weighs 169,855 pounds.
At T-1 hour, 28 minutes, 53 seconds and counting, this is Taurus Launch Control.