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GEORGE DILLER: Steve Cox, who is the operations manager for the Mission Director's Center. We're now seated at these consoles.

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And this is the last launch that this Mission Director's Center will be supporting because ST5 is a transition mission into a completely

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new Mission Director's Center and a launch vehicle data center. So, Steve, tell us, first of all, the current facility -- how long has it been a

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Mission Director's Center here at Vandenberg Air Force Base?  STEVE COX: This facility was started around 1964 with a Thor Agena

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launch. Since that time, we've supported a little over 110 launches. As, as part of that, we've also supported both Air Force and

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commercial launches during that time period.  DILLER: Well, why'd it become necessary to develop a new Mission Director's Center

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here at Vandenberg?  COX: Well, technology increases pretty rapidly and we've gone through three or four upgrades of this current

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facility. During this last upgrade, we also looked at how we would improve our way we did operations. And so, when we improved the

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technology, we gave us opportunity to build a new room and improve the way we functioned as a launch crew.  DILLER: Well, what

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we're in now, as we see here on NASA TV, is the Mission Director's Center that we're using today, that is being used for the launch of

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ST5.  When we go to the new facility, there will be in addition to the new control room, two other adjacent control rooms which are part

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of it. What are they called? How are they going to be supporting launches in the future?  COX: These are launch vehicle data centers.

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We have two of those on this coast and actually three of them on the West Coast, and they are primarily for our engineering team to sit

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and monitor data. LVC, that is LVC 2, LVC 1 is where our launch contractor team sits and/or spacecraft team. For this mission, that

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control room is set up for Orbital Sciences and that's where their launch team is. Additionally, we can actually tie the five control rooms

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of both East and West Coast together so that we can have launch crews on both coasts supporting.  DILLER: When did design and then

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the construction of the new Mission Director's Center and the two launch vehicle data centers start?  COX: The design for this started

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about three and a half years ago when we started negotiating for space over in Building 836, where they're currently located. We went

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into a design effort for about a year, and construction on this facility started January of last year for about, that lasted for about 10

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months. Then we started outfitting the room with the ground-support equipment. That took about three or four months, so we finished up

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in December of, of this year.  DILLER: So, when will be the first launch that the new facility will be fully operational?  COX: The first

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launch support will be Cloudsat/CALIPSO in April. Shortly after that, we'll be working with the NRO to support a launch there, as well.

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DILLER: If we could go back to some video of the new facilities, Steve, maybe you could tell us which ones that we're looking at as we

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kind of go through the shots, if they can bring them back up for us.  COX: This is LVDC 2. This is where the engineering team sits. We

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host about 24 seats in there, nominally.   DILLER: Now, is this the NASA or the Orbital team?  COX: This is the NASA engineering team. And

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we have that equivalent facility on the West Coast, and we try and keep the two facilities as similar as possible so that their concept of

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operation can be just picked up and used both on East and West Coast.  DILLER: Let's see, if we can go to another shot. This would be...

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COX: Yeah, this is the back view of an engineering area, LVDC 2.  DILLER: And this is very similar to LVDC 1, and I think that's

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where the Orbital team is today.  COX: That's correct.  DILLER: Where the launch conductor is, and the...   COX: We try and keep the

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two rooms as similar as possible because that allows us the maximum flexibility as to how we support. We can actually configure them,

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either room to support either team if we need to. And we can set them actually up to support individual operations as needed.

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DILLER: Well, Steve, thank you very much, and we'll be looking forward to the CALIPSO/Cloudsat launch when all of these new

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facilities will be up and running. And hopefully, today's launch will affirm that it's ready to go. COX: Thank you.

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DILLER: Thank you. We're now at one hour, 21 minutes, 47 seconds and counting. This is Pegasus Launch Control.

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