GEORGE DILLER: This is Pegasus Launch Control. Here with us now is Omar Baez, the assistant launch director for today's countdown.
And we're going to talk with Omar a little bit about what's happened and a little bit on his take of what we have to do to get back into a launch posture again.
Omar, welcome. And first of all, can you tell us what happened?
OMAR BAEZ: Yeah, George. What we experienced was we, what's known as the lock pin that holds the fins in place while we're in captive carry.
When the fin batteries were, when the fin batteries were activated and the pin pullers were told to pull out and unlock the fins,
that we weren't able to get motion on the starboard side for some reason.
I'm not sure on the port side just yet, but I know the starboard side, they had trouble with the pin puller there.
So what happens is we've burned out our, we timed out on our thin battery time.
DILLER: That's relatively short. Once you activate that, how long is it before they're...
BAEZ: We get about 45 seconds of useful life after the, after they're activated.
Actually, I think it's longer than that. I'd have to get back to you on the exact number.
But we did, we did go through the life on that battery, and that's why we're returning to base right now.
So the plan is to determine why the pin didn't pull. Could be something mechanical, could be ice, a number of things.
So we'll try to determine what that is. Then the other thing we have to do is to change out the battery,
the fin batteries, since we did expend those. And that's going to be about a 48-hour delay for us.
DILLER: So, so we know that at least to change out the fin battery, it's 48 hours,
and we have to figure out what's wrong before we can really say what our new launch attempt could be.
And then we've got to ask the range what else is going on. So at this point,
we know that we're down for at least 48 hours while they replace the fin batteries and do some
troubleshooting and then see where we stand as far as being able to attempt another launch.
So we can't really say for certain at this time when our next launch attempt will be, but it's no earlier than a 48-hour scrub.
So, Omar, thanks very much and we'll just stay tuned.
BAEZ: Thank you, George.
DILLER: Thanks.