Tracy Young/WISE Launch Commentator: From the Mission Director's Center on Vandenberg Air Force Base,
this is Delta Launch Control at T-one hour, 37 minutes and counting.
The countdown for this morning's launch of a Delta II rocket is proceeding as planned,
the launch team is currently working no technical issues and weather is favorable
with an 80 percent chance of acceptable conditions at launch time.
The only weather concern for this morning's launch attempt is for a chance of
cumulus cloud coverage within the vicinity of the launch pad.
The launch window extends for 14 minutes with liftoff targeted at the opening of the window at 6:09 a.m. Pacific time.
Launching aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket is the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, spacecraft.
WISE will survey the entire sky in infrared light with sensitivity hundreds of times greater than ever before.
The space telescope will pick up the glow of millions of objects too dim to be seen by previous observatories.
Among the objects that WISE will uncover are dark near-Earth asteroids,
distant galaxies and the nearest stars too cool to shine in visible light.
The WISE mission is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
The spacecraft was built by Ball Aerospace in Boulder, Colorado., and the science instrument was built by the
Space Dynamics Laboratory at Utah State University in Logan, Utah.
The WISE science team is comprised of scientists from various organizations
and educational institutions throughout the country.
The WISE principal investigator, Ned Wright, is based at the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA).
The Delta vehicle that will carry WISE into space consists of several major assemblies: the first stage,
which includes three strap-on solid rocket boosters; the second stage;
and the two-piece composite payload fairing encasing the spacecraft on board.
In just a few minutes, the launch team will receive a weather update from Launch Weather Officer Captain.
Andrew Frey of the 30th Weather Squadron on the status of conditions for this morning's launch attempt.
At T-one hour, 36 minutes and counting, this is Delta Launch Control.