Delta IV lifts SATCOM to orbit

Delta IV components. Credit: NASASPaceflight.com

Here we go... For the first U.S. launch of a satellite this year, United Launch Alliance (ULA) sent a Delta IV rocket into the Florida skies from Launch Complex SLC-37B at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Forty minutes later, the WGS-4 satellite separated from its stage and began orbiting. The Wideband Global Satcom 4 is a military satellite, first in a series of ten that will form a Defense Satellite Communications System. Other countries included in this defense system include Australia, New Zealand, and Canada.

ULA operates Delta launches from Pad B of launch complex SLC (Space Launch Complex) -37.

SLC-37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

Historically, SLC-37 (originally LC-37) was used to test the first Saturn 1 and thereafter launched over a half dozen Saturn 1 and Saturn 1B rockets during the Apollo program. All of these Saturn rockets were unmanned, but were part of the testing required to make sure the equipment was ready to put astronauts into space and on their way to the Moon. Later, during the 1970's the complex was demolished. The complex was later rebuilt to launch DElta and Atlas advanced rockets for government missions. The Delta IV and Atlas V are in consideration as launch vehicles for the upcoming Orion space capsule.

Closer view of SLC-37B. I took this photo while standing at Launch Pad 34, location of the infamous fire onboard Apollo 1. Inside the tower can be seen a Delta rocket being readied. Photo taken in May 2011.

Last Apollo mission to lift off from LC-37B, was Apollo 5. This was an unmanned mission on a Saturn 1B rocket, designed to lift a test version of the Lunar Module into orbit without a crew.

Apollo 5 test mission patch.

Posted by Mark Daymont

The Space Center's New Summer Missions are Announced!

Skyler and Emily's killer hound "Safari" patrolled the school's hallways
during our meeting. Always on the hunt for KAOS agents.
She is trained to bite and ask questions later.
"Who's a good dog then?"

Monday, January 16. Martin Luther King Jr. Day. A School Holiday.

The Space Center's staff of dedicated Set and Flight Directors arrived at the Space Center this holiday Monday morning under the ruse of having to do court directed public service hours for delinquency. On my direction they had their shoes untied, hair messed up, heavy dark facial make up (for females), low riding jeans (for males), and all smacking chewing gum to give the impression to any KAOS spy lurking in the trees and bushes that nothing of importance was happening at the Space Center. Once in the building the staff's anti social costumes were exchanged for proper student attire.

Why the deception? We didn't want our advisories to know today was the day we approved our summer schedule and either wrote or reviewed our summer camp stories for the summer camp season of 2012.

9:00 A.M.
Meeting with the Phoenix staff and the Programming Guild. There was a discussion concerning new Phoenix Cocoa controls.

10:00 A.M.
Breakfast meeting.
Delicious donuts, bagels, orange juice, milk and chocolate milk were on hand to get everyone's brains ready for the schedule presentation. We bid farewell to Alex Anderson who is leaving for an LDS mission on Wednesday. The applause for Alex's years of dedicated work was heart felt. Tissues were on hand for those who needed them. Counsellors waited in the room next to Discovery for anyone who needed psychiatric help to overcome the Alex addiction (over dependency on his unique computer skills necessary to keep our ships running).

Alex will be missed.

After Alex's tribute the meeting turned to the new summer missions. All five simulators need new missions for the summer. Today was the day for them to be written or revised. Just before I brought the writing sessions to order a sound was heard on the school's roof. Jon and Miranda were dispatched to investigate. Both stopped at the Magellan's armory to don vests and phasers. I feared the possibility that KAOS agents might be hovering over the rooftop air conditioner listening in, waiting to steal our intellectual property for their organization's diabolical purposes.

"Just the wind of an approaching storm," Jon reported. We stood down from Red Alert.

"Break into your teams, write or revise your new Summer stories and meet me again for lunch at Noon," I directed.

I met with my Voyager team consisting of Emily and Jon. We discussed several cool and innovated concepts we'd like to introduce in our Voyager mission; I'm not at liberty to discuss them in this open forum for reason's given in the paragraphs above.
Ideas flowed. Opinions were given. A decision was reached.

I left Emily and Jon to make copies of the mission while I jumped into the Battlestar to collect lunch from Little Caesars.

"Six of your delicious, mouth watering pizzas please," I asked the cashier. She smiled. I noticed she had gold fillings on her back teeth. Curious an American would have gold fillings. Gold fillings were more an East European practice.

"Spasibo," she replied. At that moment she knew she'd blown her cover. She had just used the Russian word for Thank you.

"You mean 'thank you' don't you?" I replied reaching for the phaser I always keep strapped to my ankle. She jumped over the counter, pushed me to the floor and escaped into the windy wintry morning. I felt obliged to pursue but stopped when I heard a banging sound. The KAOS agent had the store manager and cashier tied up in the walk in cooler.

12:00 Noon
Lunch was served in Discovery. While the staff feasted on pizza, chips and a delicious assortment of beverages (Sprite, Root Beer and Diet Coke) each simulator made a short presentation outlining their new summer story. The excitement in the air was thick enough to cut with a knife.

12:30 P.M.
The official meeting ended. The staff had the option to stay and continue to work on their own time or leave. Most stayed, realizing that once the creative juices start to flow, stopping them abruptly could be dangerous - leading to dementia, dizziness and slurred speech.

Nicole and Zac reviewing the Magellan's new summer story
Stolen Honor (Working Title)

Megan, Wyatt and Miranda reviewing the Phoenix's new summer story
Rules of Succession


Christine, Adam, Devin and Josh reviewing the Odyssey's new summer story
Star Crossed

Matt, Ben, Rachel and Stacy reviewing the Galileo's new summer story
The Galileo Incident (Working Title)

Stacy hiding her computer screen from my camera. The Galileo staff are very protective of their work. Our staff share a competitive streak - each working hard to outdo the other in the summer camp ratings.

Emily and Jon reviewing background information on the
Voyager's new summer story
The Hunt for Horace

Your Space News Updates.

Space Junk News - The Fall of Phobos-Grunt

Phobos-Grunt in assembly phase.

It's the end of another sad tale of Russia's attempts to investigate the planet Mars. Phobos-Grunt was launched on November 9, 2011 on a mission to explore Mars' moon Phobos and bring back samples to Earth. Instead, rocket failures on the probe left it in a perilous orbit around the Earth. Repeated attempts to correct the problem from Russian mission control were useless.

The orbit of Phobos-Grunt was unstable. Scientists hurried to predict where the probe would eventually crash back to Earth. Last night the answer was discovered as the craft entered the atmosphere and crashed to the surface somewhere in the Southern Pacific, about 1200 kilometers from Wellington Island. Chile is the owner of the island. No reports of the crash or any damage have been reported. There were worries that the toxic fuels on board the probe and some of the heavier instruments would survive enough of the burn-up to pose a threat to anyone near the crash site.

According to NASA records, this is the most recent of 17 failures by the Russians to explore Mars. They seem to have better success probing Venus. I think Mars hates them. Actually, it just shows how incredibly complicated and difficult it really is to send probes to other planets. We often take these explorations for granted.

ISS during Expedition 27. That's shuttle Endeavor docked at the top.

Meanwhile, up in space the ISS crew performed a maneuver to change the station's orbit slightly. They had two good reasons. Firstly, they needed to prepare for an upcoming rendezvous with a supply craft delivery of cargo. Second, and of slightly more urgency, they needed to dodge some junk.

Back in 2009, one of the Iridium satellites collided with a derelict Russian satellite. The resulting fragments scattered around the Earth. This particular fragment, about the size of a grapefruit, would pass uncomfortably close to the ISS. By performing the rendezvous maneuver now, the ISS has completely dodged the space junk.