GEORGE DILLER, NASA COMMENTATOR: This is Pegasus Launch Control.
We're being joined now here in
the Mission Director's Center by Tim Dunn, who is our NASA launch director from Launch
Services
Program, who has been involved in the countdown today and following the troubleshooting of
the issue
that developed that brought about having to scrub today's launch attempt.
Tim, first of all I wonder if
you can tell us exactly what the problem is that we saw, which I gather developed en route.
TIM DUNN, NASA LAUNCH MANAGER: Yes, George, thank you for having me.
What happened was, I
guess when we were in that last, oh, I guess about 25 minutes prior to initial drop, we
had a problem
with the hydraulic system on board the L-1011, and it's the hydraulic system not for the
aircraft
operation of the plane, but the hydraulic system that enables the release of the Pegasus
from the belly
of the plane.
So it's a part of the launch release system, it's the hydraulics that control that.
So it was not
meeting the prescribed launch release pressures, indicating a problem with the hydraulic pump.
Fortunately we had a little bit of launch window to work with, so we did a lot of valiant
troubleshooting
in the air.
As you can imagine, everyone really wanted to preserve every opportunity to have another
launch attempt today.
We did circle around the aircraft once, resetting breakers on board the aircraft,
doing what we could in flight to try to get that system back and functional again, and
as you saw, we
continued that troubleshooting right up until about the L-4 minute period where we did not
want to get
into all of those critical switch actions that enable Pegasus for flight if we knew
we had this remaining
red condition.
That's why we didn't launch today.
A little bit disappointing for the team.
Obviously you
love to go on the first attempt.
We did battle a lot of weather today, and we were able to fly around,
over and under a lot of precipitation and bad clouds on the way out to the drop point.
Fortunately we
got a very dynamic system in Pegasus, it's a beautiful launch system to allow you that
type of flexibility.
But however, just like any other launch vehicle system that we use, you do have hardware issues
that
crop up.
DILLER: Something just chose this point in time not to be good to us.
DUNN: And while disappointing that we don't go today, it's part of our business, we're
used to it.
The
team behind me is putting into steps all of the actions to return us to base successfully.
We're going to
come back to the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Skid Strip, we're going to safe all
the systems on both
the Pegasus and the L-1011, and then we'll really be able to dig in and find out why
this hydraulic system
did not function as designed today.
Ideally we're going to get that resolved today and we've already
made arrangements so we're leaning forward as if we can go tomorrow.
We have the range scheduled,
so that will not be an issue.
Weather looks slightly better for tomorrow, so that looks like it won't be as
troubling of an issue as it was today.
But really the open item is will we be able to resolve this hardware
anomaly and then get our folks the necessary crew rest later this evening to get back on
console in the
early morning hours tomorrow.
DILLER: All right, Tim, that pretty much sums it up, I think.
When we get back we'll hit the ground into
troubleshooting and kind of see if we can find out what it was that didn't work in that
hydraulic system
and if that can be fixed before tomorrow morning.
And meanwhile don't burn any bridges toward a
tomorrow-morning launch attempt.
DUNN: That's affirmative.
Yeah, we're going to keep everybody leaning forward to preserve every
opportunity to go tomorrow.
DILLER: And the launch time will be the same time as today?
DUNN: It will be an identical time.
DILLER: All right, well thank you, Tim, that kind of sums up where we are.
We see now on the L-1011
that the wheels are down so the runway must be in sight and we'll just stay tuned for
further status
throughout the day to see how they do on fixing the problem and getting us back in the morning
for
another takeoff and launch.
Tim Dunn, our NASA launch director from the Launch Services Program.
This is Pegasus Launch Control.
We'll stand by now and hopefully get some brief video of the landing of
the airplane from the chase plane that continues to follow along.
This is Pegasus Launch Control.