| Mated
to the Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL rocket at Vandenberg
Air Force Base in California, NASA's DART spacecraft is
being transported to the runway today for mating to the
underside of Orbital's L-1011 carrier aircraft. A Combined
System Test involving Pegasus/DART and the L-1011 is scheduled
for Friday, Oct. 22, and will be followed by a DART Flight
Line Test, a spacecraft state of health check.
The DART Flight
Readiness Review was successfully completed at Vandenberg
Air Force Base on Wednesday, Oct. 20. The DART Mission
Readiness Review was also successfully completed at NASA's
Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., on Oct.
15. With these two major reviews now finished, launch
is on schedule for Tuesday, Oct. 26. Deployment from the
L-1011 is targeted to occur at 11:13:32 a.m. PDT at a
location approximately 100 miles West-Northwest of Vandenberg
Air Force Base.
The DART satellite
and Pegasus XL launch vehicle were successfully re-mated
on Oct. 1, followed by successful final testing of the
Advanced Video Guidance Sensor hardware, the primary technology
demonstration experiment. The final Pegasus/DART launch
and mission simulation was successfully performed on Oct.
8. Installation of the dual fairing halves around the
spacecraft atop the Pegasus rocket was completed Oct.
15.
DART was designed
and built for NASA by Orbital Sciences Corporation as
an advanced flight demonstrator to locate and maneuver
near an orbiting satellite. The DART spacecraft weighs
about 800 pounds and is nearly 6 feet long and 3 feet
in diameter. The Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL vehicle will
launch DART into a circular polar orbit of approximately
475 miles.
The DART satellite
provides a key step in establishing autonomous rendezvous
capabilities for the U.S. Space Program. While previous
rendezvous and docking efforts have been piloted by astronauts,
the unmanned DART satellite will have computers and cameras
to perform its rendezvous functions.
Once
in orbit, DART will make contact with a target satellite,
the Multiple Paths, Beyond-Line-of-Sight Communications
(MUBLCOM), also built by Orbital Sciences and launched
in 1999. DART will then perform several close-proximity
operations, such as moving toward and away from the satellite
using navigation data provided by on-board sensors. The
entire mission will last only 24 hours and will be accomplished
without human intervention. The DART flight computer will
determine its own path to accomplish its mission objectives.
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| Today
at Pad 17-A, a loading of liquid oxygen aboard the Delta
first stage is being performed to check for leaks. This
also serves as a "minus count" crew certification
exercise for the launch team. Friday, Oct. 22, a Flight
Simulation is scheduled. This is a "plus count"
flight events test to very the operation of the vehicle's
systems during powered flight. Testing of the guidance
system aboard the Boeing Delta II rocket was completed
Wednesday, Oct. 20.
Swift
is in the clean room at NASA's Hangar AE on Cape Canaveral
Air Force Station. Wednesday, the spacecraft was weighed
and early this morning it was mated to the payload attach
fitting, the interface between the spacecraft and the
second stage of the Delta II rocket. Work to prepare Swift
for transportation to Pad 17-A will begin next week. Because
of rescheduling the launch of an Air Force Global Positioning
Satellite from adjacent pad 17-B, the launch date for
Swift is under review but is currently expected be known
within a day or so.
The
Swift observatory will pinpoint the location of distant
yet fleeting explosions that appear to signal the births
of black holes. Gamma-ray bursts are the most powerful
explosions known in the universe, emitting more than 100
billion times the energy that the Sun does in a year.
Yet they last only from a few milliseconds to a few minutes,
never to appear in the same spot again.
The
Swift satellite is named for the nimble bird, because
it can swiftly turn and point its instruments to catch
a burst "on the fly" to study both the burst and its afterglow.
This afterglow phenomenon follows the initial gamma-ray
flash in most bursts and it can linger in X-ray light,
visible light and radio waves for hours or weeks, providing
great detail for observations.
Swift
is a medium-class Explorer mission managed by NASA's Goddard
Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The observatory
was built for NASA by Spectrum Astro, a division of General
Dynamics. The Kennedy Space Center in Florida is responsible
for Swift's integration with the Boeing Delta II rocket
and the countdown management on launch day.
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