WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.000 NOAA-N will launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at about 3:30 a.m. Pacific time on May 11th. 00:00:07.000 --> 00:00:09.000 But dozens of engineers and staff at Kennedy 00:00:09.000 --> 00:00:16.000 Space Center in Florida have played a huge part in preparing NOAA-N for launch. 00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:21.000 Next, we'd like you to meet Omar Baez, NASA's launch manager for this mission. Thanks for joining our webcast today, Omar. 00:00:21.000 --> 00:00:30.000 Thank you, Tiffany. It is a pleasure being here, getting ready for this NOAA-N launch tomorrow. 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:33.000 And I'd like to take a moment and talk to you about the 00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:39.000 preparations that went into work to get this mission ready. We've flown this mission, this type of satellite 00:00:39.000 --> 00:00:43.000 identical ones on Titan II rockets the 00:00:43.000 --> 00:00:51.000 last three times, the K, L and M series of the satellite. And we've come to run out of Titan II's and we're now 00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:55.000 flying them on a commercial Delta II 7300 rocket booster. 00:00:55.000 --> 00:01:09.000 And so a regular type mission that would be a plain Jane repeat mission all of a sudden got difficult for us. 00:01:09.000 --> 00:01:13.000 And so the team of engineers had to make 00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:20.000 sure that the new accommodations on the Delta II are just pristine to be able to fly this type of mission 00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:29.000 and make sure this satellite gets into orbit safely and in good shape, that it performs its years of service to us. 00:01:29.000 --> 00:01:39.000 So this work happens about four years out. We have all our analytical folks looking at the environment that the spacecraft will see for the very first 00:01:39.000 --> 00:01:48.000 time when it rides on this type of rocket. And a lot of work had to go into that to try to accommodate the spacecraft into that new environment. 00:01:48.000 --> 00:01:58.000 Luckily, the Delta II provides an excellent ride and a great match for this type of space vehicle and we didn't have to change much. 00:01:58.000 --> 00:02:08.000 But a lot of the things that are good and contained in the Delta II are that we made the satellite much simpler. 00:02:08.000 --> 00:02:14.000 The satellite doesn't have to fly a third stage, solid rocket motor, and they can, 00:02:14.000 --> 00:02:19.000 which they used to have to fly before, due to the ballistic nature of the Titan II launch. 00:02:19.000 --> 00:02:24.000 And so a lot of things have been simplified and had to do a lot of work to make all that happen. 00:02:24.000 --> 00:02:30.000 But it just makes things -- you move forward into a new 00:02:30.000 --> 00:02:36.000 era. And, yeah, we were flying a repeat mission, but now it's a little bit different. 00:02:36.000 --> 00:02:40.000 And, hopefully, for this one and the next one, it'll be a smooth ride. 00:02:40.000 --> 00:02:51.000 I'd like to talk to you about some of the things that happened in the last strokes of the game as far as putting the rocket together 00:02:51.000 --> 00:02:56.000 And if you could roll the tape for me, I'll speak to that. 00:02:56.000 --> 00:03:08.000 Okay. This is the Delta II booster, first stage going up. This is done in early January in anticipation of a March launch. 00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:14.000 This particular booster carries three solid rocket motors with it. 00:03:14.000 --> 00:03:21.000 The capacity on the Delta II is -- it can carry six more on top of these three, but we don't need it as far as 00:03:21.000 --> 00:03:28.000 performance for these missions, so we're only flying three. These are ground lit, in other words, 00:03:28.000 --> 00:03:36.000 we light these, we'll jettison them and that's it for the solid rocket motor ride. The rest is a liquid ride. 00:03:36.000 --> 00:03:46.000 This is the second stage going up in the tower; it uses hypergolic fuels. And we're going to be mating that onto the first stage 00:03:46.000 --> 00:03:52.000 and the satellite will mate directly on top of that. 00:03:52.000 --> 00:03:59.000 And you should be seeing a shot of that coming up shortly here 00:03:59.000 --> 00:04:07.000 The satellite's going to sit inside of where these two fairing halves are going up into it the tower now 00:04:07.000 --> 00:04:12.000 the fairing halves are what -- they come together as a clam shell that protects the spacecraft on 00:04:12.000 --> 00:04:18.000 ascent through the atmosphere at the proper time of jettison. 00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:27.000 Here comes the satellite in its spacecraft can. We use this can to protect it during the transport and we actually lift 00:04:27.000 --> 00:04:34.000 the spacecraft through this can, up into the tower. This is the inside of the payload fairing. 00:04:34.000 --> 00:04:42.000 And now we're encapsulating the spacecraft within the fairing. And, again, it's two fairing 00:04:42.000 --> 00:04:48.000 halves and this is composite material that this is made out of. 00:04:48.000 --> 00:04:58.000 And I'd like to talk to you now about the countdown tomorrow. We'll start at 2:30 p.m. with a weather 00:04:58.000 --> 00:05:08.000 brief and that'll decide what our tower roll time will be. 00:05:08.000 --> 00:05:19.000 We are expecting some winds tomorrow, so it's going to be crucial. At 5:00, we will be loading RP1, that's our first stage propellant. 00:05:19.000 --> 00:05:26.000 We'll be connecting ordnance, and if everything's all right, we should be rolling the tower back by 7:30 p.m. 00:05:26.000 --> 00:05:35.000 By eleven o'clock at night, we'll be clearing the pad. And we'll have call to stations. We'll then enter terminal count, 00:05:35.000 --> 00:05:44.000 pressurize the first and second stage helium and nitrogen bottles, turn on the guidance system. And approximately 1:30 in the morning, 00:05:44.000 --> 00:05:51.000 we will start to load the cryogenic liquid oxygen into the first stage of the Delta rocket. 00:05:51.000 --> 00:05:57.000 That's going to take us about 50 minutes to perform that. 00:05:57.000 --> 00:06:03.000 After that, we will do our engine slews, which is a check on how the engine gimbals are working, 00:06:03.000 --> 00:06:08.000 in other words, the way it steers the rocket nozzles. 00:06:08.000 --> 00:06:16.000 We'll do the destruct checks on the booster. And at four minutes, we will turn the spacecraft power 00:06:16.000 --> 00:06:25.000 to internal and I will give the final go for launch at T-3 minutes, or 3:22 in the morning launch. 00:06:25.000 --> 00:06:29.000 And that concludes my brief. 00:06:29.000 --> 00:06:33.000 Thanks so much for joining us today NASA Direct, Omar. Best of luck for a successful launch. 00:06:33.000 --> 00:06:34.000 Thank you very much. 00:06:34.000 --> 00:06:34.000