Rocket Arrives in California for NASA Launch of Polar-Orbiting Satellite
VANDENBERG SPACE FORCE BASE, Calif. (NOAA PR) — Flight hardware for the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V 401 rocket slated to launch the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Joint Polar Satellite System-2 (JPSS-2) has arrived in California. The rocket’s boattail and interstage adapter arrived at Vandenberg Space Force Base July 28 for processing ahead of launch. The payload fairings arrived Aug. 8.
JPSS-2 is the third satellite in the Joint Polar Satellite System series and is designed to scan the Earth as it orbits from the North to the South Pole, crossing the equator 14 times a day to provide full global coverage twice a day. Operating from about 512 miles above Earth, JPSS-2 is expected to capture data to improve weather forecasts, helping scientists predict and prepare for extreme weather events and climate change. Liftoff is scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 1, from Space Launch Complex-3E on Vandenberg.
The interstage adapter is the connecting piece of hardware between the Atlas V booster and the rocket’s Centaur upper stage, while the boattail connects the Centaur to the payload fairing that will house the JPSS-2 satellite. The payload fairings are a protective covering that will encapsulate the spacecraft and keep it safe as the rocket ascends rapidly through the atmosphere. The payload fairings are a critical piece of hardware built specifically to accommodate the satellite, and are a key feature of the launch vehicle.
As processing continues at Vandenberg, teams at the Northrop Grumman facility in Gilbert, Arizona, are preparing the spacecraft for its mission, having recently installed the solar array that will power the spacecraft. After installing the solar array, the team packed the satellite for shipment, installed a protective cover, and enclosed the satellite in its shipping container. Ground support equipment for the satellite has already started arriving at Vandenberg to be ready to support spacecraft arrival.
Together, NOAA and NASA partner in the development, launch, testing, and operation of all satellites in the JPSS series. NASA develops and builds the instruments, spacecraft, and ground system, in addition to launching the satellites on behalf of NOAA, which operates the satellites.
Riding as a secondary payload aboard the Atlas V is NASA’s Low-Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator (LOFTID) – a demonstration of a cross-cutting inflatable aeroshell, or heat shield, for atmospheric re-entry. The mission is dedicated to the memory of Bernard Kutter, a manager of advanced programs at ULA who championed lower-cost access to space and technologies to make that a reality. The technology demonstrated by LOFTID could be used for crewed and large robotic missions to Mars.
Once JPSS-2 reaches orbit, LOFTID will be put on a re-entry trajectory from low-Earth orbit to demonstrate the heat shield’s ability to slow down and survive re-entry. The project is sponsored by the Technology Demonstration Missions program within NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate in partnership with ULA.
LOFTID is managed by the agency’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, with contributions from various NASA centers: Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California; Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama; and Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California.
NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, is responsible for managing the launch service.
21 responses to “Rocket Arrives in California for NASA Launch of Polar-Orbiting Satellite”
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I believe this will be the sixth Atlas V launch this year, and the 96th launched since 2002, an average of 4.8 per year for it. Not a bad pace for a legacy ELV…
The question that will never be answered is, what if NASA had done a massive block buy of Atlas and Delta in 2004 instead of the Ares/SLS? Say 200 with a minimum five of each per year Orbital docking and refilling and capsules before Shuttle retirement. Before Falcon even became a thing.
Interesting speculation, but would it have been possible for Boeing to have built the OSP it proposed, which became the Starliner, in less than a decade or so? Even with NASA raining money on it?
That’s another that can’t be answered. They should have been able to do it in 3-4 years if properly motivated. But the original Starliner contract is how old now?
Later I was thinking about Antares, Dream chaser and other players. What realistic alternatives were there other than Boeing or Lockheed back then?
Block buys were not a possibility back then. They only came on the table as a way to lock in launches against competition when a competitor was nearing certification.
This a what if scenario anyway as the politics goes another direction. What kind of price could have been secured with a massive bulk buy back then?? And what kind of exploration could have been done with hundreds of launches readily available??
I do take your point that it was not going to be done that way. This one of my what ifs.
United Launch Alliance in 2009 launched 19 times in that calendar year. It is very possible, if the payloads are available, and if there are no weather and technical issues, that could be done again or better.
SpaceX does what they do for a launch cadence because internally they have a lot of Starlink satellites to fly. Otherwise, they would only have a third or less of the number of launches each year than they do with just the conventional regular government or commercial payloads.
Yes the launch market is very thin, which is why Elon Musk decided to go straight to a huge consumer market with Starlink. Xerox did basically the same thing with its copy machine since the market for photographic copiers was so small, basically archive libraries and government records bureaus.
Perhaps Atlas could launch that often. but there are only 21 vehicles left now that the production is shutdown, so only 21 flights left before Atlas V is history.
The launch market is not “very thin.” SpaceX is launching at about twice its cadence of last year but the percentage of non-Starlink missions remains about the same. So demand for other-than-mega-constellation launches is definitely still rising smartly. Of course demand for mega-constellation launches is rising even faster. With OneWeb having grabbed off much of Relativity’s Terran-R launch capacity for the several years following its projected debut and Kuiper doing likewise for Altas V, Vulcan, Ariane 6 and New Glenn, there isn’t going to be much medium-to-heavy launch availability for other clients – except with SpaceX – through most of the rest of this decade. That will make some opportunities for both extant and about-to-debut small launchers.
Your Xerox analogy is flawed. Xerox’s imaging technology, to begin with was not photographic at all. It was much cheaper, per page, than photostats. Xerox was also not a consumer-oriented company, it sold its wares to businesses and government agencies. The price per page was invariant regardless of the length of the print run. The price per page for the small offset presses made by Addressograph-Multigraph rose very steeply the shorter the print run. Xerox quickly shouldered A-M aside for all but very long print runs, then finished them off by building bigger and faster machines with even lower costs per page.
I watched this happen in the late 60s. I had a job with my town government that included running A-M offset presses. But that part of the job transitioned entirely to running large Xerox machines in less than a year.
HOW DARE YOU!
ULA Vulcan launch cadence will need to eventually approach or exceed 19 per year to meet Kuiper deployment deadline.
That would be a good thing. Multiple high volume providers available.
I don’t think ULA can be fairly characterized as a “high-volume provider.” Rocket Lab and Relativity Space – and even Blue Origin – have decent shots at becoming such, but not ULA.
That is only because the Vulcan is running years behind schedule. Hopefully it will fly soon and be successful.
The Kuiper order will extend Vulcan’s life considerably, but will still not make it a long-term survivor. And I don’t see Vulcan ever launching as much as ULA could do when the Delta II was still active.
It certainly takes time for changes to make their way through the industry, especially when many companies are still heavily invested into present design approaches. SpaceX’s non-Starlink launches have steadily climbed, more slowly, but still going up year over year. I don’t think launches will really boom until people can go, or there are people living offworld, driving the need for much more cargo launched.
Actually, the percentage of non-Starlink vs. Starlink launches is about the same this year as last year, but SpaceX is launching twice as many of both kinds of missions now.
The only area of launch demand that isn’t booming is GEO comsats.
But you are certainly correct that the advent of significant settlement and industrialization activities on both the Moon and Mars will create a much busier “new normal” for the launch business than now obtains.
Actually, ULA launched 16 times in 2009. But only five of those were Atlas Vs. There was also a pair of Delta IVs and one Delta IV Heavy. The other eight missions – half the total for the year – were Delta IIs. ULA’s recent launch cadences simply reflect the retirement of the Delta II and the single-stick Delta IV. ULA is actually going to launch more Atlas Vs this year than it did in 2009.
SpaceX’s launches this year have been a bit over 60% Starlinks and a bit under 40% everything else, including dedicated rideshare missions. That will be roughly the same percentage distribution as last year, but across about twice as many total launches.
The spacex fanboys have to constantly show the world that rocket jesus is the supreme being. Any misdirection, misinformation, any spin that makes everything not spacex second best is posted on public space forums in what has become a bunch of infomercials over the last ten years.
There is a platoon of about 50 of them, probably less because of sock puppets, that patrol these forums looking for any criticism they can shout down. One such blasphemer is of special interest to them, and they have focused on him with email campaigns to editors and incessant harassment for ten years. They just can’t seem to finish him off though.
LOFTID is the tech that will be used to bring back Vulcan’s engine section. Hopefully it works as planned.
Nick H,
LOFTID and the rest of the engine recovery stuff for a Vulcan is going to impose a significant performance penalty. Perhaps ULA will compensate for that by adding lugs for an additional pair of SRBs to the Vulcan hull. That would be the simplest approach.
That all assumes, of course, that ULA actually follows through on its partial reusability plans. It has blown hot and cold on that idea for long enough to entitle we skeptics to continue to be honorary Missourians.
Gary,
Talking about yourself in the third person now? Who do you think you are – Bob Dole?