George Diller/IRIS Launch Commentator: Back now at the mission directorate center here at
Vandenberg Air Force Base, we're joined by Jim Hall.
Jim is the mission manager for the Launch Services Program for the IRIS spacecraft
and has been following it throughout the preparations to fly today for the
Pegasus XL associated with the integration of the spacecraft with the Pegasus.
Jim, welcome and would like, first of all to ask
you when did the Launch Services Program actual start becoming involved with IRIS on our radar scope?
Jim Hall/NASA IRIS Mission Manager, Launch Services Program: George, it was really early on
back in June of 2009 when the (unintelligible) program awarded the contract.
Immediately a mission manager was assigned, myself and a small team.
The next July of 2009 we attended a kickoff meeting and started to
understand some of the spacecraft requirements.
That activity continued on. We worked to understand those requirements
for a period of six months or so and then we got into our Launch Services task order process.
Which is where we go off and award missions on the NLS contract on a small class.
Diller: What is NLS?
Hall: NASA Launch Services contract. So we went off and did that competition in June of 2010.
One year later we awarded IRIS, the Orbital Sciences team won the award
on LSTO and then we got our bigger team together and from that point forward
we went off and worked very closely with the IRIS team and got to this point.
Diller: Well, looking at today how many personnel all together are directly involved
in our countdown and launch operations today and what segments are they in?
Hall: We've got over 120 NASA and contractor personnel supporting today.
And they are all highly-trained and working hard toward the moment we're at today.
As we look at the L-1011 flying in the air right now.
Diller: That includes our Air Force counterparts who have been working closely with us since we got here.
Hall: They sure have. We've been working very closely and they've overcome some
problems while we've been here. So, it's been a really good team effort. We've had some small challenges,
but nothing that we couldn't overcome now that we've gotten to this point.
Diller: We've got some really explanatory video of what all has happened
with the Pegasus and IRIS in preparation for the launch today so we'll roll the video and,
Jim, tell us what we're seeing.
Hall: Here is the IRIS spacecraft being processed in the
Lockheed Martin Sunnyvale plant out in California. This is solar array deployment.
As you can see, IRIS is a small spacecraft and the solar arrays are about 12-foot across.
And the weight of the IRIS spacecraft is about 400 pounds.
We took is in the truck and we trucked it on down to
Vandenberg Air Force Base and it arrived here at Building 1555.
That's where the Pegasus was processed in parallel to IRIS coming on down.
This is a view of the Pegasus first stage as we're panning across.
Looking at the top section here, this is the wing of the Pegasus.
Heading towards the back we've got the wings and the nozzle.
Here's our team, some of the folks who spent a lot of time testing
getting the Pegasus ready for the launch.
And there's a lot of the testing and integration.
As you can see, there's a lot of that test set up
hardware and the team members getting ready.
We ran repeated tests to be sure everything was working right.
Here's a great shot of the three stage Pegasus rocket, all three stages.
There's the business end of the Pegasus. And you can also see also,
the tail, the fins on the first stage and the attitude control.
In this shot we're mating the first and second stage.
And there's the Orbital technicians as they're mating those two stages.
This will be the 42nd launch of the Pegasus system.
And, we've had a lot of success with this. It's been a great rocket for us.
This is a nice shot of the enclosure -- the clean enclosure that we have.
When the spacecraft arrives, we mate that in the clean enclosure.
Speaking of the spacecraft, there it is. And, it just arrived, that was back on April 19th.
We're forklifting it out of the transportation truck there.
And looking � you'll notice it's got (unintelligible) around it � contamination sensitive payload here.
So we've got to make sure it's covered up. And this is the shipping fixture.
The team's gonna cleaning up around there and they're going to lift the
IRIS spacecraft off of that fixture, as they put the bracketry on there,
they're going to put it on to our ground handing fixture.
We call it the "bird-mobile" and they're getting ready to do that.
As soon as they get that on there, they're gonna start looking at "hey,
did we have any post-shipment problems with it. So they did a complete check out of it.
And there's some of the Lockheed Martin team there, just making sure their baby made it safely.
That was well done. And, as you can see here,
the "bird mobile" going into the clean tank � we're shoring it all up there.
Then our spacecraft team unwrapped their present.
And, there she is, IRIS. You can see Pegasus' third stage in the background there.
The team's next job is to mate the IRIS spacecraft with the Pegasus launch vehicle.
And you can see the "bird mobile" being positioned there. We then tweak it a right and left,
and right over the little (unintelligible) you can see there. We have an isolation system,
we have a shot of the isolation system,
so we don't get any excessive vibration or shock on the payload.
Moving immediately into encapsulation, you notice the star bird faring
doors are being closed and now getting the port one closed and putting the finishing touches on that.
And at this point and time, it looks like a rocket.
There she is. We hoisted her over on the assembly and integration trailer you see there,
and that�s for the preparation to roll out to the hot pad so
we can mate up to the Orbital L-1011 carrier aircraft.
Early in the morning, you want to avoid the wind in this operation so were driving along.
This is a couple of quick notes.
Pegasus weighs about 51,000 pounds and it's about 55-foot long.
Rolling it under the Stargazer, this is one of the only L-1011s
that's still flying in the United States right now.
We're getting ready to mate the Pegasus to up to the securing four hooks up there over the wing.
Interesting, we're jacked up two foot. We had to jack the
L-1011 up two foot -- see this jack and this little yellow right there.
Roll that baby under there; install it -- the LIT rolling back there. Hey baby, we're ready to fly.
Diller: Well, Jim, we noticed in the video we saw,
there's a name penciled on the faring. Who is it and what's the significance of it?
Hall: That is George Hale. We talked with the principal investigator.
IRIS is a sun sensing experiment. We're doing a lot � we're gonna learn a lot about the sun.
And the team wanted to recognize �George Hale lived back in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
He was an American solar astronomer and he was a graduate of
MIT that was responsible for many solar discoveries.
So, he also, interestingly, hired and encouraged Edwin Hubble at the Mount Wilson Observatory.
So, he did all kinds of work. He did work on determining sun spots have a magnetic signature to them.
And he played a central role in developing the
California Institute of Technology to one of the leading research centers, research Universities. So �
Diller: Jim, thank you very much for talking to us about what we've done to get to this point today.
The Pegasus and IRIS spacecraft together now flying along with this L-1011 ready for launch.
Hall: My pleasure. Diller: Jim, best of luck tonight.
Hall: We're all excited. Go, Go Pegasus. Go IRIS.
Diller: At launch minus 34 minutes, three seconds and counting, this is Pegasus Launch Control.