George Diller/Launch Commentator: This is Pegasus Launch Control,
T minus one hour, 35 minutes 54 seconds and counting.
Joining us now here in the Mission Directors Center is Al Sierra,
the director of the Flight Projects Office for NASA's Launch Services Program.
And Al is going to talk to us some about what we've done to
get the Pegasus and the NuSTAR ready for the flight.
And, Al, this really goes back quite some time because most of the work was
done out at California at Vandenberg Air Force Base much earlier this year...
I think they got started getting things ready to fly. But,
now we're going to show some video and if you could talk us through what we're seeing.
Al Sierra/Launch Services Program Flight Projects Office Director: Absolutely, George.
OK, so here we're seeing the Pegasus launch vehicle in Building 1555,
which is located at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
You see the technicians there getting various parts of the rocket assembled.
This rocket is assembled in the horizontal orientation as
opposed to some rockets that are put together in vertical.
Right now, you see they're installing the aft skirt that is part of the first stage of the vehicle.
And you know, Pegasus is very unique in the sense that it's the only rocket that has wings.
The wings are fixed wings. It's a composite and steel material is what it's made of.
And that aft skirt you see there is part of the closeout of that aft nozzle.
The Pegasus has a total of three stages, first stage, second stage and third stage.
Right there, you see they're putting on the avionics structure on to the third stage.
That avionics structure holds all of the computers and the tank with gaseous nitrogen,
which is used for our reaction controller basically steering
that third stage engine and inserting the spacecraft in the proper orbit.
There you see a picture of the first stage and those items there are the fins.
Those fins are installed on the aft end of the first stage.
As you see there's a crane operation where they will hoist and install those fins.
The fins are used to steer that first stage.
Unlike other rockets, this nozzle on the first stage is fixed so it does not move.
So, it uses these fins to steer the rocket.
Kind of like an airplane would steer with its elevons and its vertical stabilizer,
the Pegasus will steer with those fins. And those fins are operated with electromechanical actuators.
Interesting fact on the Pegasus is that the first stage,
I guess the total weight of the rocket is about 51,000 pounds.
And that first stage, once it's ignited, will burn approximately 71 seconds.
Second stage will burn about 73 seconds. And then that third stage will burn a total of about 68 seconds.
As you see here this is a transporter that they use to transport the
Pegasus rocket out to the what we call the hot pad, or where the L-1011 is waiting for it.
It's a tight operation there. The wingspan of the Pegasus is about 22 feet,
wingspan from left to right and that opening of the door is basically just,
they basically have about a foot on each side of clearance.
Here you see the NuSTAR spacecraft. It's being processed in a white room,
I guess in a clean room. Basically a tented area where we maintain the
cleanliness levels to protect the instruments.
They're installing the payload fairing on the, that basically protects the spacecraft
during launch and during the captive-carry on the L-1011.
This fairing is made of composite material that's basically two halves that are
pulled together and then bolted and attached to the launch vehicle.
It uses basically a separation system that's initiated with some linear-shape charge explosives.
The transport operation starts very early in the morning, at about 5 a.m.,
they start all of the preparations to pull the rocket out of the Building 1555
as you see there they're pulling the rocket out.
They maintain a purge in the payload fairing while during the transport
operation to make sure that the spacecraft is kept in a clean and dry environment.
That morning when the spacecraft, when the rocket was pulled out to the hot pad,
you can see that it was a very foggy day, but it still met the criteria for
that operation so they proceeded with all the mating operations.
As you see there, they will be lifting the Pegasus rocket onto the L-1011, or Orbital OCA,
Orbital Carrier Aircraft, they call it the Stargazer.
It uses a system of hooks and umbilicals to connect the rocket to the aircraft.
Those umbilicals, we have electrical umbilicals, we have umbilicals to maintain air conditioning,
inside the payload fairing to maintain the cleanliness of the spacecraft and keep it cool.
And the electrical umbilicals provide information on the vehicle health.
And there you see the aircraft, the aircraft taking off.
This L-1011 is now, was there en route to Kwajalein.
They had one night stopover over at Hawaii Air Force Base at Hickam.
George Diller/Launch Commentator: Well, Albert, we take a fair number of people to
Kwajalein along with the L-1011 in order to do the countdown.
Tell us some about how many people went out and who all went out with it.
Al Sierra/Launch Services Program Flight Projects Office Director: OK. So, we have roughly about 55
folks out there at Kwaj supporting this launch.
It's a combination of Orbital, Orbital folks.
Orbital Sciences operates the aircraft and the launch vehicle.
We have folks supporting the NuSTAR project, which is basically the spacecraft
folks and then we have some Launch Services Program NASA engineers and launch directors out there as well.
George Diller/Launch Commentator: Well, Albert, thank you very much for walking through
with us what we've taken to get to this point today to get the Pegasus ready for flight.
Thank you very much.
Al Sierra/Launch Services Program Flight Projects Office Director: You're welcome. Sure thing.
George Diller/Launch Commentator: Now we're at launch minus one hour, 28 minutes, 48 seconds and counting.
This is Pegasus Launch Control.