Looks like this is it!


Lovely weather, too, should provide excellent vehicle tracking shots.

Time now 20:20Z

T -4Min and counting

No - go, redline monitor fault, scrub for today.

-the other Doug

Time Now 20:21

t-3Min and counting

NH is GOGOGOGOGOGGO!

I'm getting nervous, this is exciting...

Crap!

I don't know how many more mornings like this I can take!

Ah #$%^!!~

Oh well.

ARRRGGHHHH !!!
Scrub

OK, what's the launch window for tomorrow? I know, the weathre doesn't look all that good, but...

-the other Doug

Dammit

Abbort!!!

Although we did our best to reach page 14 ... a redline monitor fault had other ideas
By The Way ... still no " New Horizons " items here:
http://www.bookstore.caltech.edu/jpllab/de...NK11FR6W2SHAC9A


Safing the vehicle now

report from early today was 60% for violation of launch criteria.

Hey Doug. Launch window times are here:

http://spaceflightnow.com/atlas/av010/051129windows.html

I think I just learned that I don't have the temperament to be a launch controller. Those guys just look so calm and cool, and I'm about ready to jump out of my skin.

I'm going to join y'all for a beer...

Welcome to the space business...

We still have a healthy Atlas V and NH. The hardware looks in great shape.

Tomorrow's launch window extends from 1:16 to 3:15 p.m. EST.

See you then.

8 minutes earlier! oh well, who needs sleep!

It better go tomorrow! (I know not looking good)

Any info on the weather forecast for tomorrow ?

I HATE WINDS!!!
The constraint that violated a red line limit was indeed the ground winds. There was a gust that broke the 33-knot limit as the countdown was proceeding to a last-ditch attempt for launch at the very close of today's available window.

The latest report calls for partly sunny, becoming sunny. Yesterday, the forecast had been for 30% rain. The lauch forecast from yesterday was for 60% violation of launch criteria on Wednesday. We are all waiting for an updated launch forecast.

Would it have been better to launch our rockets in the Southwestern desert like they used to in the 1940s and 1950s?

Look at those old artworks of "future" space missions. Most of them are launching from a desert locale.

Looking to this table, I understand the reson of the delay if we miss Jupiter assist. What is not clear is why there are further huge slippages in February (1 year every 3/4 days of delay!). It seems that a small shift in start position imply an heavy change, peraphs due to a more elongated orbit... am I correct? can someone simulate this?

My reasoning is that because Earth moves in its orbit much faster than Pluto, during a course of 3 days it covers an arc around the sun of a few degrees. If the launch speed and eject trajectory always stayed the same, it would mean that the arrival point at Pluto would also be shifted by the same angle. However, Pluto takes a whole lot more time to cover that angular distance so you actually need to launch slower than you theoretically could, just so you end up at a precise point in Pluto's orbit exactly when it's there also. But then again, a slower inital launch introduces yet further delays and it's a closed circle.

One Pluto's orbit takes 248 Earth ones so a quick and dumb estimate yields 248 days of arrival delay (for Pluto to arrive at the new arrival point, not actual arrival at Pluto!) for each day of launch delay. Obviously this wouldn't work very well. This is purely theoretical and a very big simplification of the whole scheme. Of course, a powerful booster like the Atlas V obviously can cut some corners here and there.

The chance of the weather srubbing the launch on Wednesday is currently set at 30% (today, Tuesday was set at 20%). Thursday's chance of a scrub due to weather is only 10%.

See:

http://www.floridatoday.com/floridatoday/blogs/plutolaunch/

I'm expecting New Horizons to launch on Thursday...according to the forecast on Yahoo.com

I think the delay is because the amount of gravity assist changes because Jupiter is no longer idealy positioned. I doubt New Horizons would reach Pluto at all without the gravity assist.

That's why they call them (the best of them, anyway) "steely-eyed missile men."

But, to tell the truth, after it's all over, they go out and tilt back a few beers, themselves...

-the other Doug

Not true. The February 5th launch date is the very last date on which a Jupiter-assist trajectory can be achieved. The dates past Feb. 5 are for direct-to-Pluto trajectories without any gravity assist from Jupiter. Or from any other body, for that matter.

That's the reason the arrival dates shift so dramatically after Feb. 5. But it's awfully impressive that the Atlas V can place NH on a solar-system-escape trajectory, intersecting Pluto's orbit, without *any* help from a gravity assist!

-the other Doug

Yes, quite impressive.
Ugordan, thanks for your interesting explaination...

The US of A wasn't the only space-faring nation who couldn't get a space vessel off the ground yesterday...

----------------------------------------------------------------------
*** JAXA MAIL SERVICE ***
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Launch Postponement of the Advanced Land Observing Satellite Daichi
(ALOS)/H-IIA Launch Vehicle No. 8

January 18, 2006
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

The launch of the H-IIA Launch Vehicle No. 8 (H-IIA F8) with the
Advanced Land Observing Satellite Daichi (ALOS) onboard has been
postponed due to a malfunction found yesterday in a part of the launch
vehicle onboard equipment(*1) during the Y-1 operations(*2). We will
replace the malfunctioned part with a new one.

The launch was originally scheduled on January 19 (Thu), 2006 (Japan
Standard Time) from the Tanegashima Space Center.

(*1) Telemetry transmitter: the equipment to transmit flight status
data to ground stations

(*2) Operations one day prior to the launch day (The launch day is
over two days for the H-IIA F8; therefore, "one day prior to the
launch day" is actually two days before the launch day on a calendar.)

The new launch date will be announced as soon as it is determined.


* This information is also available on the following website:

http://h2a.jaxa.jp/index_e.html

This page URL:

http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2006/01/20060118_h2a-f8_e.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Publisher : Public Affairs Department
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)
Marunouchi Kitaguchi Building,
1-6-5, Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-8260
Japan
TEL:+81-3-6266-6400

JAXA WEB SITE :

http://www.jaxa.jp/index_e.html

SCRUB!

Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory suffered a power cut.

Try again tomorrow.

Nick

So what happened now?...did they forget to pay electricity bill?

Hmmm ... this isnt looking good for NH, how long do they have to launch before they miss the Jupiter flyby?

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 18, 2006

1459 GMT (9:59 a.m. EST)

A management meeting is planned for 4 p.m. EST this afternoon to determine if the New Horizons control center in Maryland will be ready for a launch attempt tomorrow or whether more time is needed. The Atlas launch team is moving forward with a 24-hour scrub turnaround timeline to preserve the option of flying tomorrow.

1459 GMT (9:59 a.m. EST)

SCRUB! Today's launch attempt has been called off. The New Horizons mission control center at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory suffered a power outage this morning. The backup system using generators is not sufficient to proceed with the launch. So the first mission to Pluto will remain on Earth for another day.

Tomorrow's launch window extends from 1:08 to 3:07 p.m. EST.

http://spaceflightnow.com/atlas/av010/status.html

I think there's still plenty of time for Jupiter. From Alan's post back in December:



ISTR seeing a more detailed breakdown of the windows somewhere...

They'll get the Jupiter gravity assist if they launch before February 3; they've still got two weeks.

--Emily

There is a very large weather front traveling across the eastern United States. In a very unusual weather pattern for mid-January, there are scattered severe thunderstorms battering the U.S. east coast from New England all the way down to the Carolinas and Georgia.

Believe me, APL wasn't the only place that lost power as these storms passed through.

And I wouldn't guarantee that the weather will improve -- the storms are powered, as storms always are, by the temperature and pressure differential between two colliding air masses. The air pushing these storms eastward along the American continent is frigid, and much of the country has had high temperature swings, from one day to the next, of more than 20 degrees C.

-the other Doug

Interesting -- I heard Alan Stern say, in the 1/15 press briefing, that the last launch opportunity that allows a Jupiter gravity assist was the February 5th window.

They're re-running that press conference on NASA-TV every few hours... maybe someone can check me and tell me if my memory has suddenly developed terminal CRAFT?

-the other Doug

Ooops -- it suddenly occurs to me that he might have said that on the Discovery Science Channel special, "Passport to Pluto." I'll have to check that...

The context was that Alan was asked how long we could use Jupiter for a gravity assist. He said that the overall launch window for using Jupiter has been open for about two and a half years, but that it closes -- for good, as far as we're concerned -- on February 5th. He had a look on his face that spoke the unspoken addendum "and we managed to piss away almost the entire window!"

-the other Doug

I thought this only happened to "the other guys"...

What is the procedure for a scrub/scrub turnaround on a cryo-fueled rocket like the Atlas 5? Constant boil-off of the cryos and ice formation would seem to dictate that the rocket be de-fueled while waiting for the new countdown.

--Bill

Bah! Darn the East Coast for its crappy, power outage-inducing weather!!


Long live California and its sunny, smoggy skies...

Well let's not discuss the power systems (e.g. California's net can't even absorb all the energy produced by the windmills of Tehachapi mountains)

Back to the topic as it seems that the decision whether a launch can be attempted tomorrow isn't yet taken (officially).

One of the many issues Galileo had to deal with getting into space was a major earthquake in CA right around launch time. And now it's going on 11 years since Galileo dropped its atmospheric probe into the Jovian clouds.

Translation: Don't worry, it'll get up and out there. Alan Stern and his team have waited years for this moment. And we'll have to wait 9 more years for NH to reach Pluto. But the sad thing is, it'll be here and gone before you know it. My kids will be in college (if I can still afford it) by the time NH visits Pluto. And I will be 29 again. So savor this historic time and don't be in such a rush.

Easy for you to say -- as of right now, assuming NH gets off before the Jupiter-assist window closes, I will be 59 years old when it gets to Pluto. If we slip past early February and have to take one of the direct-to-Pluto trajectories, I'll be 64 or 65 when NH arrives.

Not that I'm being morbidly concerned about my own lifespan, but when you start talking about the range between 59 and 65, especially in white American males, you're looking at the age range during which a majority of us die.

I *really* want to see NH encounter Pluto. My odds of seeing it are *greatly* enhanced if it takes 9 and not 15 years to get there...

-the other Doug

For the 24 hour turnaround from yesterday, the cryo propellants were unloaded. The kerosene for the 1st stage was left in the stage. I don't know how long the 1st stage can remain fueled. For 24 hour turnarounds, I would guess the kerosene stays put. If there was a much longer delay (no jinxes here), it may be unloaded.

We're about the same age, so I do understand. But by 2015 we may all be able to download our minds into an artilect, so we can live to see the first interstellar missions as well.

Just think, if we were launching this mission before the 20th Century, most of us would not have lived to see its conclusion, on average.

I can imagine that, during the Great Age of Exploration, an elderly monarch might have had reservations financing and sending off great voyages of exploration, with no certainty he/she would be alive when the expeditions returned...

-the other Doug

The announcement should be made around 4 PM, EST today

Oh, and I should be 36 if NH reaches Pluto by 2015...assuming nothing goes wrong the next time I go skydiving

On the other hand, Medieval European cathedrals were built for the ages, funded by people who would never live to see their creations finished.

http://www.dist102.k12.il.us/resources/MiddleAges/page3.htm