Atlas booster, GPS satellite delivered to Cape Canaveral
Two down, one to go.
United Launch Alliance last Thursday completed its second Atlas V rocket launch within a week, and the second of three planned this month.
Just before last week's launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, ULA's Mariner ship delivered to Cape Canaveral the Atlas booster slated to launch the next mission: the 11th in a series of 12 Global Positioning System satellites for the U.S. Air Force.
The launch is targeted for 12:17 p.m. on Oct. 30.
ULA kicked off its busy month on Oct. 2 with the launch of Mexico's Morelos-3 communications satellite from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. It was ULA's 100th launch since Boeing and Lockheed Martin formed the joint venture in 2006.
With launch No. 101 now also in the books, it's on to No. 102.
The next Atlas booster wasn't the only flight hardware to arrive at the Cape last week.
The 45th Space Wing also received the 12th and final GPS spacecraft in the series called Block IIF, which is expected to launch early next year.
The satellite was shipped from Boeing's manufacturing facility in El Segundo, California, on a C-17 Globemaster III aircraft, landing at the Air Force Station's Skid Strip.
Brig. Gen. Wayne Monteith, commander of the 45th Space Wing, said the event marked the "end of a legacy," as it would be the last GPS satellite processed at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
"This culminates an incredible 27-year legacy at our Area 59 Satellite Processing Facility," said Monteith. "We are the nation's premier gateway to space and are humbled to be a part of the team that provides GPS and its capabilities to the world."
New face of SLS
NASA last week named a new manager to oversee development of the massive Space Launch System rocket, and it was no surprise: John Honeycutt, who had been the program's deputy manager at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama.
Honeycutt will lead a nationwide workforce of more than 4,200 civil servants and contractors with an annual budget of $1.7 billion, NASA said.
SLS is the Saturn V-class rocket NASA is developing with the intent of launching astronauts beyond low Earth orbit, starting in the area around the moon.
A first test launch from Kennedy Space Center's launch pad 39B is tentatively targeted for late 2018, with no crew aboard an Orion capsule. NASA hopes to launch astronauts atop the SLS no later than April 2023.
Neighborhood watch in effect
The Air Force recently declared operational a pair of satellites launched from Cape Canaveral last year that will keep an eye on potential threats orbiting more than 22,000 miles above the planet.
The first two of four planned Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program satellites launched in July 2014 on a United Launch Alliance Delta IV rocket.
The satellites will patrol orbits high over equator that are home to some of the military's most expensive and critical communications and missile warning satellites, plus many commercial communications satellites.
Gen. William Shelton, the head of Air Force Space Command when the mission launched, described the satellites providing a "neighborhood watch" looking out for any "nefarious capability other nations might try to place in that critical orbital regime."
The mission's patch featured a pair of owls.
XPRIZE teams ink launch contracts
A pair of teams competing for the $30 million Google Lunar XPRIZE have recently announced launch contracts.
They include Moon Express, which says it has signed deals with Rocket Lab to launch three MX-1 spacecraft to the moon starting in 2017.
The launch site wasn't specified, but New Zealand-based Rocket Lab is considering Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station as a potential U.S. launch site.
Moon Express has performed tests of its prototype lander at KSC's former shuttle runway and plans to continue development and test flights at Cape Canaveral's Launch Complex 36.
Moon Express said it was "the first company in history to secure such a contract."
But days later, SpaceIL, an Israeli competitor, said it was the first competitor to produce a "verified" launch contract, for a ride on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket expected to lift off from California in the second half of 2017. Competition officials backed up that statement.
“We are proud to officially confirm receipt and verification of SpaceIL’s launch contract, positioning them as the first and only Google Lunar XPRIZE team to demonstrate this important achievement, thus far,” said Bob Weiss, vice chairman and president of the prize.
The signing of at least one verified launch contract extended the competition's deadline through 2017. The Google Lunar XPRIZE seeks to land a privately funded rover on the moon that can travel about a third of a mile and transmit high definition images and video.
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