George Diller/NASA Launch Commentator: Joining us now on the console is Tim Dunn.
He was our NASA Launch Director during the countdown tonight.
And Tim, I wonder, first of all, if you can give us a little update from what you've been able to see of the data . . . how the flight went.
Tim Dunn/NASA Launch Director: The flight went terrific George. We have just confirmed spacecraft separation.
Lot of celebration in the control room right now, but overall great performance of the rocket.
We'll do a quick look in about an hour, but what we saw on the consoles, everything looked very nominal.
George Diller/NASA Launch Commentator: And, how did the countdown go?
Tim Dunn/NASA Launch Director: Countdown very smooth tonight overall.
We were very fortunate on the western range to have some of the best weather I have been associated with for a launch out here.
Zero percent probability of violation for weather criteria is almost unheard of on the West Coast.
So, we were very fortunate there.
And our up level winds did cooperate. We had initial balloon data that we sent up was red for the
first probably two thirds of the countdown, but we continued to use that used differing curve fit techniques and were
able to come out with green upper level winds data with about 20 minutes to go prior to T-0.
So, that was our biggest issue that we worked.
We had a few other minor issues that kept engaged in the nominally net. We had a cool center section that we worked with.
No issue there, we did not violate any constraints and overall a very smooth countdown.
George Diller/NASA Launch Commentator: Well the flight of the Delta II is not yet over.
What is to occur here within the next half hour?
Tim Dunn/NASA Launch Director: Well, within the next half hour we are going to
deploy our secondary payloads for the NPP mission.
NPP obviously being the prime payload that we just had a successful separation with,
but now we are monitoring the Delta II second stage which is carrying three of our
P-Pod dispensers that will eject nano satellites or cube sats.
We are carrying six cube sats from various universities around the country and we
are looking forward to the deployment of those.
They will be deployed within 100 second increments between the three deployments.
George Diller/NASA Launch Commentator: What is next for us out here at Vandenberg?
Tim Dunn/NASA Launch Director: Next for Vandenberg, we have a little bit of a break between West Coast missions.
We have a new star payload, Pegasus, that we will actually launch from Kwajalein in the Pacific Ocean.
We will stage that mission through Vandenberg, so we will briefly be back in Vandenberg in the spring of next year.
George Diller/NASA Launch Commentator: That rocket is actually here now getting ready for flight hopefully.
Tim Dunn/NASA Launch Director: Yes, but our next mission to launch from the West Coast will be
two missions at the end of next year.
The LDCM Land sat Data Continuity Mission, that is currently scheduled for December 2012.
In addition we have a Pegasus launch, Iris, which is scheduled for December 2012 here from the western range.
George Diller/NASA Launch Commentator: And the Land sat will be going on what type of Rocket?
Tim Dunn/NASA Launch Director: The Land sat will launch on an Atlas V and it will be significant
in that it will be our,NASA's, first West Coast mission on an Atlas V.
George Diller/NASA Launch Commentator:(Clapping and cheering in background) Well speaking of Atlas V?
I think that is confirmation that the Solar Arrays have just deployed. That's good news.
Tim Dunn/NASA Launch Director: That's what it sounds like. You can see our space craft folks
are very excited in the mission director center here.
That's obviously confirmation that we have deployed Solar Arrays and are power positive on the spacecraft.
George Diller/NASA Launch Commentator: What's our next launch back at the Cape?
Tim Dunn/NASA Launch Director: And our next launch back at the Cape is within a month.
We will be back at Cape Canaveral to launch the Mars Science Laboratory mission
(MSL) on an Atlas V from Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral.
George Diller/NASA Launch Commentator: Well, thanks Tim and I guess with that good news that the Solar Arrays
are now deployed NPP's real mission can now really gets underway.
So, thank you very much and we look forward to seeing you again back at the Cape.
Tim Dunn/NASA Launch Director: Thank you George.
George Diller/NASA Launch Commentator: We are now at 67 minutes 20 seconds mission elapsed time.
This is Delta launch control.