This is Delta Launch Control at T-83 minutes and counting, and I have with me right now John Calvert,
who is our mission integration manager. John, thanks for joining us.
Glad to be here, Bruce.
We were close to launching a few days ago and had, in fact, had less than a minute to go before we
actually lifted off and had a communications issue. Can you tell us about that and what we've done to resolve it?
Yeah, as we talked about on Friday, this is a very complex mission involving many different organizations around the world.
Launch day unfortunately adds even more complexity that everything must be perfect before we can give the final "go" for launch.
Since CALIPSO/CloudSat is entering an established constellation of satellites, we have to launch at a very specific time each day.
There exists only one, one-second opportunity every day to launch these two missions,
so with this instantaneous launch time, it means once we leave the T-4 hold, there's absolutely no time to work any issues.
And unfortunately, any unexpected problem during that time means it will result in a scrub for that day.
On Friday, you saw an example of one of those problems encountered during our first attempt. At about T-48 seconds,
a hold was properly called by the CALIPSO project manager because a mandatory constraint was violated.
Both the primary and backup communication links were lost between the CALIPSO mission director here at
Vandenberg and the spacecraft operations center in Toulouse, France. So the team has looked into this issue.
We've changed slightly how those communication links are established and even added a bit more redundancy
to prevent that from happening again today. And also, since Friday, there's been some unfortunate scheduling errors
involving a refueling tank that's necessary to ensure our instrument and aircraft can return safely to base after gathering the
vehicle telemetry data. So we also believe this issue's solved. I can happily report that both the
instrument and aircraft and tank took off earlier this morning and are on their way to the mission support point.
Good. Well, that's good to hear and I know that everything seems clearer. Are we working any issues today?
Today, the count so far has progressed very smoothly. Weather's looking very good as we, as you reported, I think, for the planned liftoff time.
The technical team's not working any issues. We used the, the time over the weekend to rest the crews who worked very hard during
the past few weeks readying ourselves for this launch. We regained access to the spacecraft onboard systems and we reset their
batteries and onboard systems so we can be ready for our daily opportunity today, and hopefully over the next few days should the need arise.
But, so Bruce, really, despite our setbacks over the weekend, we're in good shape now. Good.
Another attempting at launching our Delta II launch vehicle with CALIPSO/CloudSat satellites later this morning.
Great. And I understand we just had a weather report and everything on the weather front sounds good.
In fact, they're giving us a zero chance of violating weather this morning.
Yes, weather looks absolutely perfect. Almost unheard of out here at Vandenberg.
But no, weather's looking very good and I think we're about ready to go into cryo-loading of the first stage.
Right. Good. Alright, well, thank you very much. I know there's a lot of work still to be done. Good luck to you and the team.
Bruce, thank you very much.
Alright. Thank you. Everything does continue to go well. We're at T-79 minutes and counting. This is Delta Launch Control.