WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.000 00:00:02.000 --> 00:00:07.000 GEORGE DILLER: Now joining us here in the MissionDirector's Center is Dave Breedlove, who is the 00:00:07.000 --> 00:00:15.000 Mission Integration Manager for NOAA-N. Dave, first of all, tell us briefly what it is that the Mission 00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:21.000 Integration Manager does. You're very much involved on both sides of the aisle, the vehicle and the 00:00:21.000 --> 00:00:25.000 spacecraft. Is that right? MR. BREEDLOVE: That's true, George. We have a team of people, highly skilled 00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:35.000 team of people who help us get to meet with the spacecraft counterparts and make sure all the requirements 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:42.000 are met in order to mate them to the vehicle. In this case, it went very smoothly. So it's 00:00:42.000 --> 00:00:51.000 been about a three, four year journey to this point to get that done. MR. DILLER: Here at the end, of course, 00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:58.000 is the -- where the rubber meets the road and we get the Delta II ready for launch and get NOAA-N ready. 00:00:58.000 --> 00:01:02.000 And we have some video now that we're going to show of some of that activity. And, Dave, if you can tell 00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:10.000 us what we're seeing as we go along. MR. BREEDLOVE: Okay, George, this looks like the spacecraft 00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:18.000 arriving at Vandenberg. They use an aircraft, the C5, to get here on the strip out here 00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:26.000 at the airport. They transport the spacecraft directly over to Building 1610 and put it inside and begin their 00:01:26.000 --> 00:01:32.000 processing. You can see it's transported horizontally in the can and moving inside the building, make sure 00:01:32.000 --> 00:01:41.000 everything is clean for their -- to their requirements. It takes about a day or so to get everything ready and a 00:01:41.000 --> 00:01:49.000 couple of days before they take the can off and start processing. So, you know, that's a very careful 00:01:49.000 --> 00:01:54.000 operation. Here you see the spacecraft, of course, getting lifted out of its can. And they're going to put it on 00:01:54.000 --> 00:02:03.000 a rotation fixture, bolt it down. And we'll probably see that rotate to the vertical position and hopefully here 00:02:03.000 --> 00:02:13.000 -- there it goes. So this is the beginning of their processing here at Vandenberg after a great deal of testing at 00:02:13.000 --> 00:02:20.000 their -- their facility in Sunnyvale, California. MR. DILLER: And who builds NOAA-N? 00:02:20.000 --> 00:02:26.000 MR. BREEDLOVE: NOAA-N is built by Lockheed Martin in Sunnyvale, just about couple hundred miles 00:02:26.000 --> 00:02:35.000 north of here. And they put -- they build the satellite very early. It's a satellite in a long series of satellites. 00:02:35.000 --> 00:02:42.000 Put it together very early, test it, put it in storage. Sometimes comes out of storage to retest, depending on if 00:02:42.000 --> 00:02:52.000 a satellite on orbit has had a -- suffered a failure of some kind. So they've taken good care of it for a very 00:02:52.000 --> 00:03:00.000 long time. In the meantime, for us, the launch vehicle side, we build the vehicle kind of in the same way for 00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:07.000 this mission, which is unique, in that we built it and put it in storage. And when we were called up by our 00:03:07.000 --> 00:03:14.000 customer, we take it out of storage. This is what you're seeing. We put the booster up on the stand. This is 00:03:14.000 --> 00:03:21.000 first stage of the Delta. We put that up in January. And at that time, we were getting ready for a March 00:03:21.000 --> 00:03:30.000 launch opportunity, if you recall. And we had to wait shortly after that for our NOAA customer to repair a 00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:37.000 transmitter that they had failed on board the spacecraft. And that moved us into the May timeframe. 00:03:37.000 --> 00:03:45.000 Booster here comes horizontally, like the NOAA, put it up vertical and put it on the launch mount. You know, the 00:03:45.000 --> 00:03:52.000 first stage contains two tanks, one for RP1 and one for liquid oxygen, which we're loading now. And that 00:03:52.000 --> 00:04:01.000 fuels the main engine there at the bottom. Next we should be seeing the -- well, we're still doing the first 00:04:01.000 --> 00:04:10.000 stage here. This is the inter stage that comes in. It mounts to the top of the first stage and, primarily, houses 00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:24.000 the second stage nozzle extension, which we'll see in a little bit. So that's the next step. This is a structural 00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:34.000 part of the vehicle. It's very important. Second stage sits on top. And the bottom of this portion is on -- right 00:04:34.000 --> 00:04:40.000 at the top of the first stage. MR. DILLER: So the second stage engine is actually going to go right down 00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:45.000 inside there. MR. BREEDLOVE: Right down inside. You'll see, the nozzle extension is pretty long. It's 00:04:45.000 --> 00:04:54.000 almost as long as the stage itself. We'll see that in a little bit here. But before that, we erect the solid rocket 00:04:54.000 --> 00:05:03.000 motors. These motors for this mission, there's only three of these motors required because of the mass of the 00:05:03.000 --> 00:05:09.000 spacecraft and the orbit requirement that we only need three. As you know, the Delta can fly as many as 00:05:09.000 --> 00:05:20.000 nine. For this mission three are put on the vehicle. And all three are ignited at T-zero, and jettisoned some 00:05:20.000 --> 00:05:29.000 68 seconds into flight. Put these engines one at time. They rotate them around into the proper position and 00:05:29.000 --> 00:05:36.000 then bolt them down. Next we should see the second stage of the Delta. You can see the long nozzle 00:05:36.000 --> 00:05:44.000 extension here, it'll be better when it goes to the vertical position. What's covered there is back end. And 00:05:44.000 --> 00:05:53.000 what looks like foil is the nozzle extension. Then you put the hook on it, get it vertical very carefully so they 00:05:53.000 --> 00:06:02.000 don't hit that nozzle extension on the ground, which would be a very bad day. There you go. Now it's 00:06:02.000 --> 00:06:10.000 vertical. You can see the length of it. And it fits -- as we go up the tower here, they'll show the stage going 00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:21.000 down into the inner stage section or the beer can, that's what they call it here, the local guys. 00:06:21.000 --> 00:06:26.000 MR. DILLER: These are all Boeing folks? MR. BREEDLOVE: They're Boeing and some NASA folks. In 00:06:26.000 --> 00:06:33.000 fact, I recognize a couple of the NASA folks there. And we're always monitoring the activities, especially 00:06:33.000 --> 00:06:40.000 hazardous activities, which all these are. Next you'll see the payload fairing, two halves of the payload 00:06:40.000 --> 00:06:53.000 fairing that eventually will go around the spacecraft. These are hoisted up into the tower and put in a storage 00:06:53.000 --> 00:07:01.000 position in the tower awaiting the spacecraft to come out. They are -- they do have electrical harnesses and 00:07:01.000 --> 00:07:06.000 they do go through some testing. They have ordinance on board the payload fairing to separate the two halves. 00:07:06.000 --> 00:07:12.000 So they are up there and they're connected up and they're involved in some of the processing and 00:07:12.000 --> 00:07:19.000 some of the testing that goes on. MR. DILLER: Fairing is about how big? How wide? MR. BREEDLOVE: 00:07:19.000 --> 00:07:25.000 The fairing is a ten foot in diameter fairing. It narrows down a little bit to eight feet at the second stage. 00:07:25.000 --> 00:07:33.000 Second stage is eight feet. So we're at -- where it comes out is -- at its widest point is ten feet. And that's to 00:07:33.000 --> 00:07:42.000 accommodate the spacecraft. Next you'll see the next part in the process is the spacecraft. Spacecraft is 00:07:42.000 --> 00:07:48.000 canned in the facility we saw it go in a little while before. It's canned up, it's brought out very early in the 00:07:48.000 --> 00:07:57.000 morning in order to avoid any winds. We can't put it at the tower. It's very low level winds. We can't tolerate 00:07:57.000 --> 00:08:03.000 much more than ten knots or so. The spacecraft goes into the tower and it's bolted to the second stage of the 00:08:03.000 --> 00:08:11.000 Delta, top of the second stage. It's the next part in the stack. You can see the second stage there. The -- 00:08:11.000 --> 00:08:20.000 they're bringing it down. Well, now it looks like we've gone to fairing encapsulation. We do this very 00:08:20.000 --> 00:08:29.000 carefully, bring the fairing halves around the spacecraft and set it down on the second stage rail. And the 00:08:29.000 --> 00:08:37.000 next one went on, I'm sure. Everything went pretty well with those activities. MR. DILLER: So you're 00:08:37.000 --> 00:08:44.000 looking, of course, to the end of a long road on this one. But do you -- will you be working with the next 00:08:44.000 --> 00:08:48.000 one that's coming down the line? MR. BREEDLOVE: Currently I'm assigned to the NOAA-N Prime. So, 00:08:48.000 --> 00:08:53.000 yes. And that's scheduled for a December '07 launch right now. 00:08:53.000 --> 00:08:56.000 MR. DILLER: All right. Thank you, Dave, very much. MR. BREEDLOVE: I'd like to personally thank the 00:08:56.000 --> 00:09:02.000 members of the integration team that worked with our spacecraft counterparts throughout the last few years. 00:09:02.000 --> 00:09:09.000 They did a great job and they know who they are. MR. DILLER: Very good. Thank you very much, Dave. 00:09:09.000 --> 00:09:16.000 At T minus 37 minutes, 41 seconds and counting, this is Delta Launch Control. 00:09:16.000 --> 00:09:20.000