George Diller/Launch Commentator: Joining us now is Tim Dunn.
He was our assistant launch director for today's countdown operation.
So, Tim, I wonder if you could kind of summarize how the countdown went and
then what you've been able to see from the data from your perspective about how the flight of the Pegasus has gone.
Tim Dunn/NuSTAR Assistant Launch Director: OK, Great. Thanks, George. Thanks for having me.
It's a terrific day for the Launch Services Program here at Kennedy Space Center.
We're a little bit spread out right now. Obviously, the core of our
launch team is out in the Marshall Islands at Kwajalein and they are thrilled right now.
Back here at Kennedy Space Center, we have a large contingent of our
engineering team as well as our management team here at Hangar AE at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
And we're celebrating as well. Really, today was a great day for NuSTAR, great day for Pegasus,
great day for the entire launch team, both on the government side as well as the contractor side.
So, we thank Orbital Sciences for the ride and we're ready to get into the science portion of the NuSTAR mission.
We had very nominal preparations for launch today.
As we were powering up the spacecraft we saw an indication that we needed to study a little bit.
So, we spent a little bit of time, delayed our target drop time by about a half-hour.
Albert Sierra was on with you a little bit earlier and explained that. We did the necessary investigation,
talked to the vendor, did some drawing research, our engineering team analyzed the condition, found it acceptable.
And we proceeded on with all of the aircraft preparations at Kwajalein
on the L-1011 and had wheels up a little bit after 11 a.m. Eastern time.
George Diller/Launch Commentator: The flight itself, what did you see as far as data
and coming back from the Orbital side of the house how the flight went.
Tim Dunn/NuSTAR Assistant Launch Director: The flight of the Pegasus, we had a nominal drop right
at our target drop time, a little bit after noon Eastern time.
First stage burn was right down the middle of the corridor, very nominal,
as well as the second and third stage burns.
So, the performance of the Pegasus launch vehicle was right on the money, George,and we're really thrilled.
George Diller/Launch Commentator: Well, we've heard it looks like the orbit is
nominal and the solar arrays are out, so it looks like we've got a good launch
and a good flight and a good mission that is now under way for the NuSTAR team.
Tim Dunn/NuSTAR Assistant Launch Director: Absolutely.
George Diller/Launch Commentator: We've got another Pegasus coming up at the beginning of next year.
Can you tell us a little bit about when that launch will be and where that's going from and about that one?
Tim Dunn/NuSTAR Assistant Launch Director: Yes. Our next mission on Pegasus will be the IRIS mission.
And that is scheduled on the Western Range for the early part of 2013.
So, right now, we're looking at a launch opportunity in the January or February timeframe on the Western Range.
We've begun processing the Pegasus for that mission in Building 1555 at Vandenberg Air Force Base and we're very
excited to have another NASA science payload to launch on this great vehicle.
George Diller/Launch Commentator: All right, same facility we saw in our video getting this Pegasus ready to fly.
And we've gotten confirmation through the spacecraft team, they've gotten a good lock on the,
with the TDRS spacecraft, and the spacecraft is still reorienting.
Getting ready to point fully into the sun point attitude.
But at this point it seems that we had a successful launch,
so this will conclude our launch coverage for today.
At 26 minutes, 17 seconds into the flight of the NuSTAR spacecraft, this is Pegasus Launch Control.