WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.000 00:00:02.000 --> 00:00:08.000 GEORGE DILLER: This is Pegasus Launch Control, T-44 minutes, 37 seconds and counting. 00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:15.000 The L-1011 now en route to the drop box location off the coast of Monterey. And with us now is Garrett Skrobot, 00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:20.000 the mission integration manager for ST5 from the Kennedy Space Center, and Garrett has been involved with this mission from the beginning, 00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:31.000 because you've really sort of worked the spacecraft side and the vehicle side. Is that right? 00:00:31.000 --> 00:00:35.000 GARRETT SKROBOT: That's correct, George. 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:42.000 DILLER: He's going to look, look at a tape now that picks up the flow at a hangar where the Pegasus was, 00:00:42.000 --> 00:00:50.000 and we'll see a little bit of the spacecraft being readied to be mated to the Pegasus and then the rest of the activity. 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:53.000 So, if we can roll the tape now, Garrett, if you can tell us what we'll be seeing over in the... 00:00:53.000 --> 00:00:59.000 SKROBOT: OK. Well, what we see here is the Pegasus launch vehicle. They're putting on what we call the aft skirt. 00:00:59.000 --> 00:01:10.000 The aft skirt is an accumulation of multi parts, it controls the fins and the upper rudder. 00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:15.000 The fins controls the vehicle during first-stage flight. Right here you see the technicians bolting it in. 00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:20.000 This right here is a good shot of the, one of the fins going on on the aft end. 00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:39.000 They're carefully lining it in, making sure all the clearances are good before they go in and put the final bolts in. 00:01:39.000 --> 00:01:45.000 This will control the vehicle for the, for the first 90 seconds. 00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:49.000 Here we go, we're looking at the first stage being mated into second stage of the Pegasus XL. 00:01:49.000 --> 00:01:59.000 The third stage also has the avionics section, which is on the forward end. They carefully bring it in to line it up once again. 00:01:59.000 --> 00:02:09.000 Technicians here bolting down the third stage into the second stage, making the measurements of the disconnectors. 00:02:09.000 --> 00:02:12.000 DILLER: And these are all Orbital Sciences team members? 00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:19.000 SKROBOT: Yes, Orbital Science team. They performed this task for us. 00:02:19.000 --> 00:02:26.000 And here they are ratcheting in the hardware and lining up the bolt holes, be sure things are proper before they start putting the bolts in. 00:02:26.000 --> 00:02:30.000 They torque them down. And then there'll be a separation system that'll be executed to separate the two stages during flight. 00:02:30.000 --> 00:02:39.000 Here we have the spacecraft being uncovered in 1555, 00:02:39.000 --> 00:02:45.000 the Orbital facility, over in 836. 00:02:45.000 --> 00:02:52.000 The spacecrafts are already mounted onto the payload support structure and are hoisting it up and are going to mount it over to their 00:02:52.000 --> 00:03:00.000 mounting dolly or work dolly they perform the work with. They did this about middle of January timeframe is when they arrived over 00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:15.000 in 1555 to start the processing in the facility to get ready to integrate into the vehicle. 00:03:15.000 --> 00:03:18.000 DILLER: 1555, that's what we call the Pegasus hangar, I guess. 00:03:18.000 --> 00:03:23.000 SKROBOT: Yes, it is. That's what the Pegasus vehicle is processed in. 00:03:23.000 --> 00:03:32.000 And they're doing their functional testing to make sure everything's OK for transport. And here they're in their clean room tent. 00:03:32.000 --> 00:03:40.000 They clean to 100,000. Here they perform what they call a "pop-and-catch" test to make sure their separation systems are working properly. 00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:50.000 This is the, the mating of the payload support structure onto the avionics section. And they'll line it up, right there. That was one of the gas thrusters. 00:03:50.000 --> 00:03:53.000 DILLER: So that's actually the upper stage? 00:03:53.000 --> 00:03:59.000 SKROBOT: That is the upper stage, the stage with the avionics ring right there 00:03:59.000 --> 00:04:05.000 And technicians bolt it in, torque it in. We don't have a separating system, the spacecraft provides their own separation systems. 00:04:05.000 --> 00:04:10.000 So, here they're doing a blacklighting inspection before they get the fairings put on. 00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:15.000 You can see right here, this is the first half of the Pegasus XL fairing, 00:04:15.000 --> 00:04:27.000 and they're lining it up and putting it into position. This is very time consuming. You want to make sure that everything's lined up. 00:04:27.000 --> 00:04:40.000 The fairings will be used to protect the spacecraft in the dense part of the atmosphere as it flies, it increases the acceleration, 00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:45.000 and then it'll be released once the heating around the vehicle is reduced to a certain point. 00:04:45.000 --> 00:04:57.000 As you can see, everybody's in the bunny suits, it's in a clean room environment. We're trying to make sure we keep the spacecraft as clean as possible. 00:04:57.000 --> 00:05:01.000 DILLER: I guess the fairing is coming off after we're out of the atmosphere, is that right? 00:05:01.000 --> 00:05:07.000 SKROBOT: That's correct. There's a heating requirement, we want to make sure that a heat the spacecraft up as it goes through the atmosphere. 00:05:07.000 --> 00:05:16.000 Here's the second half of the fairing coming in, and here in a second you'll see, once more cleaning. What they do is they'll do an alcohol wipe, 00:05:16.000 --> 00:05:22.000 sweep of the fairing to clean any kind of particles away from the mylar liner inside the fairing itself. 00:05:22.000 --> 00:05:34.000 They want this as clean, to be inspected and reassembled. 00:05:34.000 --> 00:05:45.000 Here we have the rollout, the vehicle, spacecraft's mated, fairing is encapsulated and the vehicle's getting ready to roll out to the L-1011. 00:05:45.000 --> 00:05:47.000 DILLER: I guess that was earlier this week. 00:05:47.000 --> 00:05:58.000 SKROBOT: Friday, Friday morning they performed this task. And it goes very slow. 00:05:58.000 --> 00:06:04.000 Here we have the L-1011, you can see it's jacked up a little bit so when the Pegasus arrives... 00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:12.000 You see it was a little bad weather that day, and some of the operations was delayed a little bit, but the team held in there and got it worked on. 00:06:12.000 --> 00:06:34.000 It gets wheeled in from the aft side of the belly of the aircraft. They get into position. A little touch there, to push it up in there. 00:06:34.000 --> 00:06:39.000 DILLER: Now, does the rocket go to the airplane, does the airplane go to the rocket, or is it a combination of both? 00:06:39.000 --> 00:06:45.000 SKROBOT: Here, well, here's where they're putting the rudder up. The rudder had to be taken removed, 00:06:45.000 --> 00:06:52.000 so we could get the rocket up underneath it, and then they put the rudder back on it again. 00:06:52.000 --> 00:07:22.000 It was a combination of the two, they bring the rocket up to the L-1011. Here they are putting the rudder back on. And then we took off this morning. 00:07:22.000 --> 00:07:30.000 DILLER: Well, I guess with weather looking good, and I guess the one issue we had, 00:07:30.000 --> 00:07:37.000 I guess turned out to be something that's totally acceptable for launch today. I guess we're targeting, I guess... 00:07:37.000 --> 00:07:39.000 SKROBOT: Will be 14:25... 00:07:39.000 --> 00:07:47.000 DILLER: 14, yeah, that's going to be 6:25 Pacific Time. Well, Garrett, thank you very much, and we'll look forward to having you back on your next mission. 00:07:47.000 --> 00:07:48.000 SKROBOT: Thank you, George. 00:07:48.000 --> 00:07:58.000 DILLER: Thank you. At T-36 minutes, 50 seconds and counting, this is Pegasus Launch Control. 00:07:58.000 --> 00:07:58.000