George Diller/NASA Launch Commentator: Well let's look at some video now, and Bruce, if you could tell us some of
what we're seeing here as what we get ready to fly tonight.
Bruce Reid/NASA LSP Mission Manager: OK, this is the Delta II first stage. It's manufactured in Decatur (Ala. )
and shipped to Building 836 at Vandenberg Air Force Base.
And right now they're going to lift it off the transport truck.
And then they'll back in this transport erector and they'll go ahead and move it
over to the horizontal processing facility.
And over there they'll do receive and inspection and they'll install some ordnance and do some additional
preparations before they move it to the launch pad.
So were' back at (Building ) 836 again and this looks to be the second stage of the Delta II launch vehicle.
And they'll go ahead and take this out of the vehicle and again put it on one of
those yellow transporters and prepare it for its move out to the launch pad.
This is also manufactured in Decatur.
And this looks like we're already onto the payload fairing.
This is one-half and the metal structure you see there around the fairing is
what we call ?strong back,' just a handling fixture.
And this is the first of the fairing halves going up the side of the launch tower.
You can see that the fairings are in a protective bagging,
so we actually leave the clean facility with three bags on the payload fairing.
This is an item we have to keep extremely clean.
And then just before we hoist it up the tower, we remove one of those bags.
And then here you can see it coming into the white room.
And once this white room is clean and stabilized, they'll remove one more bag and it'll
stay over here stowed until it is time to install the payload fairing around the spacecraft.
So this here is the first stage, this time it's headed out to the launch pad.
And what you see here is the top of the first-stage fuel tank. This stage uses RP1 and liquid oxygen.
So you have an RP1 tank on top and a liquid oxygen tank on the bottom.
And there's a good shot of the Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne RS27A engine.
So this will be hoisted up into the mobile service tower.
This stage is about eight feet in diameter.
And now what we see here is the first stage being lowered down onto the launch mount.
And this is the inner stage here. The inner stage is really just a hallow cylinder.
This will be hoisted up on top of the first stage.
And the open cylinder allows room for the second-stage engine nozzle to fit inside of it.
So now we have one of the solid motors. These are manufactured by Alliance Tech Systems.
The NPP rocket uses nine of these strap-on solids.
And each solid adds an additional 110,000 pounds of thrust to our NPP Delta II launch vehicle.
These solids are 40-inch solids. These are the standard graphite epoxy motors,
as opposed to the larger Delta II Heavy solids. And they're about 40 feet tall.
And they'll ahead and mate them over a period of three to four days, all nine solids.
So this is the Delta II second stage out at the launch pad now.
What you see there is the top of the guidance section.
It houses the launch vehicle avionics. And it's good shot there of the Aerojet, AJ-10 engine.
This engine is a hypergolic engine. Uses Aerozine 50 and nitrogen tetroxide.
And here you see it being lowered down into the inner stage.
And this is our spacecraft being transported to the pad.
This was on the morning of October 13. And we had been fighting some wind issues this week,
so we transported very early that morning but we had to wait down at the bottom the
tower in order for the winds to subside to an acceptable level.
So we see now is the spacecraft inside the transport canister being lowered down on to the Delta II second stage.
And here's a beautiful shot of the NPP spacecraft.
And what we're doing now is we're going to move this protective fairing and encapsulate the spacecraft.
And this fairing will remain on and we're in this configuration now
until about five minutes into the launch when it's jettisoned. And I think that's pretty much it.
George Diller/NASA Launch Commentator: Bruce, what would be, you think, would be the highlight for you in the
launch tonight? What will you be watching for,
that I think we'll probably be what you'd say is the crescendo for you and all of the activity to get ready to fly tonight?
Bruce Reid/NASA LSP Mission Manager: Well there's so much that goes into it from all the different teams.
You know (inaudible) has been working to prepare these instruments in the spacecraft
for so long and the United Launch Alliance folks have worked so hard to get this rocket ready.
And the Launch Services Program has pulled the two together here.
You know we're one team and I don't think anybody's going to be happy until we see that spacecraft safely on orbit
and operating and we should know the health of that spacecraft about 90 minutes after launch.
George Diller/NASA Launch Commentator: Bruce, thank you very much. And best of luck, of course.
Bruce Reid the mission manager for NPP for NASA's Launch Services Program at Kennedy.
At T-minus 111 minutes, eight seconds and counting, this is Delta Launch Control.