George Diller/Launch Commentator: This is Atlas Launch Control and we have a reaction
from the team here in the Mission Directors Center, which we're going to get Tim Dunn,
who is our assistant launch director, to tell us what that's about because there was certainly some
smiles and some handshakes and some jubilation here when we got the word of the latest event.
Tell us, Tim, what you've learned the status is of LDCM.
Tim Dunn/Assistant Launch Manager: Well, hello, George. We just got confirmation that the solar arrays
have developed successfully for LDCM. So, that was the first main mark event post separation.
So, you saw the reaction in the control room. Everyone's very relieved.
We've got telemetry coming back from LDCM. So, all is well so far.
George Diller/Launch Commentator: That is good. So the spacecraft is power positive
and it's off on the mission that we had hoped.
So, Tim, tell us a little bit from your perspective about how
the countdown went since early this morning.
What time did you actually come into the Mission Directors Center?
Tim Dunn/Assistant Launch Manager: Well, I came in about up to 3:30 a.m. PST,
local time here at Vandenberg. But first I'd like to say obviously I'm speaking on behalf of Omar Baez.
Omar is the launch director for this mission. Here at Vandenberg, we have a slightly different
configuration for our launch team.
George Diller/Launch Commentator: That's right, we're kind of spread out.
Tim Dunn/Assistant Launch Manager: We have the core senior management on the north part of the base and
the remote launch center along the with ULA and then we have our
engineering team here in Building 836 on south Vandenberg.
So, I was able to work the countdown with Omar and come down here just
before confirmation of spacecraft sep and I'm glad to be here with you.
So, just a few notes about today's countdown.
George Diller/Launch Commentator: Right, about how things went. Right.
Tim Dunn/Assistant Launch Manager: Yeah, things could not have gone better today, George.
It really was an absolutely smooth countdown and that's a testament to our incredible Atlas V team,
both with government and contractor.
George Diller/Launch Commentator: We didn't hear much offline discussion.
Tim Dunn/Assistant Launch Manager: Virtually, I'll run down each of the components of our team.
George Diller/Launch Commentator: OK.
Tim Dunn/Assistant Launch Manager: Weather, we thought we might be dealing with a little bit of cool
temperatures going into cryo tanking, but we didn't even have that.
We were well above our cryo limit as we went into tanking.
Upper level winds were green for flight.
The range, I'll compliment the 30th Space Wing range team, Colonel Nina Armagno,
has an exceptional team here at Vandenberg Air Force Base.
We love coming out to Vandenberg and absolutely no range issues today.
And the launch vehicle. That Atlas V did, it's a work horse for us,
and it absolutely performed beautifully today.
We had only one very minor issue and that was with a camera that had
condensation on it as the sun came up. But that quickly burned off.
It was a camera that was monitoring our LO2 drain plugs.
So, very good performance by the entire team today, exceptional,
we're all thrilled with what we have on orbit now in LDCM.
George Diller/Launch Commentator: So then the flight, what you saw after liftoff all the way up to
separation appeared to be exactly what it was supposed to be
happening when it was supposed to be happening.
Tim Dunn/Assistant Launch Manager: We were able to look at the booster performance.
We had very, very clean booster performance.
The team is, they are looking at Centaur second stage performance now.
But based on the orbital elements that we saw,
we believe that we had just exceptional Centaur performance as well.
George Diller/Launch Commentator: That's good. It looks like we've kind of,
kind of laid the foundation for another mission, which is coming back at the Cape later on this year,
which is another Mars mission. Is that right?
Tim Dunn/Assistant Launch Manager: We're going back to Mars in November
of this year on an Atlas V out of Cape Canaveral.
So, I would like to, I guess, make a few more comments about what
Charlie Bolden was commenting on, our NASA administrator.
The closeness of these two missions, I don't think everyone realizes what all is
involved in launching two Atlas Vs, one off the east coast, one off the west coast 11 1/2 days apart.
Tremendous teamwork between the NASA LSP team, the spacecraft teams and especially United Launch
Alliance to review all of the data that was required, to disposition all of the data observations.
Just exceptional work, George. And then as we approached the last few days as we were getting ready for
LDCM, completing FRR, working through a few last-minutes issues Thursday night and Friday, having the
LRR on Friday, coming back as a reconvene on Saturday,
just I can't compliment the launch team enough, just exceptional work.
George Diller/Launch Commentator: Well, Tim, that's good, I think that pretty much says that going
forward we will be well prepared for our remaining Atlas missions that will be
coming up from Cape Canaveral later on this year.
Tim Dunn/Assistant Launch Manager: Absolutely.
George Diller/Launch Commentator: So, any closing remarks, Tim?
Tim Dunn/Assistant Launch Manager: Yeah, I would like to point out one thing.
As Omar and I were in the remote launch control center this morning,
we noticed that there was a drawing on the wall in the break room,
so if we could show that.
This is a graphic that a young lady at one of the local high schools here near
Vandenberg Air Force Base drew.
This and obviously this is an Atlas V and its got some wonderful words
wishing the launch team best luck.
And what I wanted to point out is that she says the
Atlas V launching here and what the men and women here at Vandenberg,
particularly United Launch Alliance, do to inspire her and her classmates.
And I wanted to tell Annalise that you inspire us.
We were really moved when we saw this, so keep doing what you're doing.
I know you're in the robotics club here in the local high school.
And your note says that your school was watching the launch so hopefully
we put on a good show on for you and your classmates.
And we're really excited when we can inspire people in science,
technology, engineering and mathematics. So, thank you, George.
George Diller/Launch Commentator: Well, Tim, thanks very much.
And congratulkations to you and Omar and the entire
United Launch Alliance team and Vern Thorpe is quite please as well.
So, thank you once again and we'll see you back at Cape Canaveral.
Tim Dunn/Assistant Launch Manager: Great, thank you, George.
George Diller/Launch Commentator: This is Atlas Launch Control.