Going....going....GONE!

We have a GO for launch! Yes...the spacecraft is away now, beginning it's life in orbit. I can't even begin to tell you how happy and relieved a LOT of us are. We get our lives back! Well...almost. Turns out I was counting my chickens before the eggs hatched. I hadn't counted on being sucked back into the mix of the de-install of all the equipment at our payload processing facility and the pad itsself. I figured there was enough of the 'normal' group of people to make that happen, and I could get back to my day job. That is not the case. Yesterday (Thursday, the day after launch) was the hardest day yet as we franticly pulled miles of cables from the pad, getting it all ready to ship away to the spacecraft factory who it all belongs to.

But hey...that's such a downer...instead I choose today to focus on the good. The successful launch of NROL-65 (that's the official designator we use for the launch). All of the pictures below are compliments of Spaceflightnow.com (I have only one picture from my location, it will be the last shot).

Here is the view of the rocket/spacecraft still in the MST. This was my view multiple times every day for the last many weeks, as I walked across from left to right to get to the stairwell going up.



 This is the area that I lived at these many weeks...the areas of the tower where the spacecraft lives.

This begins at level 16 (but they don't count the lower 2 levels, so it's actually the 18th floor).

In the wee hours of Wednesday morning as the Mobile Service tower has rolled away, leaving the rocket standing on the pad connected to the Umbilical Tower (UT). 

 And we have ignition! The large plume of fire is the free hydrogen gas that has been vented off the three boosters. The engine on the starboard (right-most) rocket lit at T-7 seconds in an attempt to burn off all this hydrogen gas (and suck it down as it gets roaring) and the middle/left engines fire at T-2 seconds. At this time the white payload air duct is still connected to the fairing/spacecraft (connected on the left side of the fairing, on the opposite side of the giant mission decal).

And we have liftoff! You can see the payload air duct flinging away as the umbilical arms swing away from the rocket as it clears the pad. You can also see the scorching on the orange boosters from the hydrogen cloud.

And the rocket has cleared the umbilical tower in a blaze of fire!



This is a nice picture showing both halves of the MST just as the rocket has lifted above them. 

She's a real beauty in flight! You can still see some of the insulation is still burning in-between the middle and right rockets down near the engine nozzles.



And here she's really picking up some speed, heading away on it's course to orbit.

And this is my picture. The rockets have stopped with the exhaust plume..but you can still see three small glow-spots from the main engines. I was lucky enough to catch it in the same frame as the moon. Goodbye to our spacecraft...it's been a long haul but we made it. Live long and prosper!

And that about wraps up the launch. Hopefully soon now we will have all the post-launch work done and I will be able to resume my LIFE! I think I had 2 bike rides in the last month, and that's very unsatisfactory! I hope to ride at least TWICE this weekend (YES, I get ALL THREE DAYS OFF...Woo-HOO!) And the weather is actually cooperating for a change...nice weather today and all thru the weekend forecast. I can hardly believe it! I'm giddy with the thought of THREE DAYS OFF...in a ROW!

And so...here's hoping you have an awesome Labor Day weekend...the un-official end of summer. Get out there and do something FUN! And be safe!

Cheers!

There's LIGHT at the end of the tunnel!

It's a bit after 4am on Sunday, and I'm at work. And it's my LAST shift with the spacecraft! The graveyard shift is on their way home, and we the dayshift guys have the helm (a bit of Navy speak there). It's going to be a long quiet day as there's no major ops planned on our side, but that's ok...it's a nice way to end this LONG run of 4 months of crazy shifts. Yesterday was a BIG day as we reached a major milestone with the vehicle and it's preperation for launch. All is well...and as far as we know we are go for launch this coming Wednesday (HOORAY!) I won't be on shift here at the pad at all either Monday or Tuesday, and launch day only has one electrical guy on shift, so I'm thinking of taking the day off. I'm planning on taking my Mt bike down to the Gaviota area (on the coast, about 40 miles south of here), park the car, and find a good spot to watch the launch, then go for a nice ride after that...a GREAT way to end this long run of work. Next week we jump right into the next launch, but our part on that vehicle won't be very much...this particular vehicle is our 'bread and butter' program, and it's our last of that particular contract. Not sure where we will be in the future, but our contract with the Government (Air Force) is up for renewall/renegotiation in March 2014, and we are overstaffed for our future role, (whatever that is). There's been a trend these last 6 years where some of our work is funneled off to another group, and each successive launch we've done has had a bit more taken away. For this particular launch we didn't have nearly the work we did back on my first campaign back in 2005...back then we owned the pad so to speak, and we did almost everything. So come next year, there will be layoffs or certainly job shifts/reassignments,, but I'm pretty sure that I'm safe. For us electrical types we don't have enough of us...it's the mechanical  guys who should be (and are, I can assure you) worried. Also some of the managers...we seem to have WAY too many of  those (isn't that the way it always is?) Anyway, enough on that.

The US Pro Challenge (aka the Tour of Colorado) is over, and I haven't seen a lick of it. I finally broke down yesterday (during my long 12 hr Saturday shift, during a moment of quiet) and peeked at Velo News. I have all the stages recorded on the DVR, but not sure when I'll get a chance to watch them...or even if I will bother...it's always rather unsatisfying to watch a race that's history, especially if you know the outcome. The Vuelta is also underway...and I doubt very much that I'll see any of that either...that's always one of the races that I 'watch' via Velo News. Really hoping Chris Horner can pull off some magic and get a high GC placement...but the cards are stacked against him...he's got some fierce YOUNG guys between him and the podium for sure.

Not much else to talk about for now...I'll have some pics to post of our launch...prob put those up maybe Wednesday evening. Keep your fingers crossed...this is a very important launch for US (and by US I mean the U.S). We've all got some tax dollars sitting here on the pad...these are extremely expensive spacecraft...so expensive that it's totally worth it to use THREE expendable rockets to get it up into orbit. Bad things happen in the spacelaunch biz, but not this time. We are going for gold...and that's the only medal that counts. If you feel so inclined you can follow the launch (and likely even watch live online video) at spaceflightnow.com...they have already posted the launch time as 10:52am pacific time, Wednesday the 28th. They will have the mission link up giving you written progress reports many hours before the launch as the rocket is fueled and readied for launch.

Here is the link to the Mission Status page (save you the trouble of finding it):
http://spaceflightnow.com/delta/d364/status.html

This is exciting stuff! SO much can go wrong, but there is an army of people dedicated to not letting any of that happen. I can't even begin to describe the ga-zillions of man-hours involved in a launch campaign...starting with the factories that build the rockets and spacecraft (that takes years), and then transporting both to the pad, and prepping them for their journey. It's just a HUMONGOUS undertaking. Keep your fingers crossed, I sure will (sure, we've done the work to the best of our abilities, but still a little luck is always a good thing).

Have a GREAT week, and be safe out there!

Here's to a successful launch...CHEERS!