{"id":13531,"date":"2018-11-02T21:07:18","date_gmt":"2018-11-02T13:07:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/pegasus-launch-set-for-no-earlier-than-wednesday-but-data-review-continues\/"},"modified":"2018-11-02T21:07:18","modified_gmt":"2018-11-02T13:07:18","slug":"pegasus-launch-set-for-no-earlier-than-wednesday-but-data-review-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/pegasus-launch-set-for-no-earlier-than-wednesday-but-data-review-continues\/","title":{"rendered":"Pegasus launch set for no earlier than Wednesday, but data review continues"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Technicians work on the Pegasus XL rocket last month at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, before its ferry flight to Florida. Credit: USAF 30th Space Wing\/Tony Vaulcin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The launch of a NASA research satellite built to probe conditions along the boundary between Earth\u2019s atmosphere and space has been tentatively rescheduled for no earlier than Wednesday off Florida\u2019s east coast, pending the conclusion of a review of unexpected data signatures discovered on the first stage of the mission\u2019s air-launched Pegasus XL rocket, officials said Friday.<\/p>\n

The Ionospheric Connection Explorer, or ICON, satellite is mounted to the forward end of the Northrop Grumman Pegasus rocket underneath the belly of an L-1011 carrier jet at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.<\/p>\n

A launch readiness review is planned as soon as Monday or Tuesday to examine the results of troubleshooting and testing to investigate unexpected data signatures detected during the cross-country ferry flight of the L-1011 airplane and the Pegasus rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California to Cape Canaveral on Oct. 19.<\/p>\n

If engineers deem the rocket healthy, the Pegasus XL will be carried aloft to an altitude 39,000 feet (11,900 meters) over the Atlantic Ocean, where it will be dropped on an easterly heading to fire into orbit around 3:05 a.m. EST (0805 GMT) Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring that flight, we saw some indications that we didn\u2019t like on the control system on the Stage 1 motor, and we spent a lot off time troubleshooting that on the ground, and decided to change out some hardware,\u201d said Phil Joyce, vice president of small launcher programs at Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems.<\/p>\n

The L-1011 carrier aircraft, named \u201cStargazer,\u201d took off Oct. 29 on a nearly five-hour test flight to gather more data on the Pegasus control system. The test flight included multiple runs through the Pegasus drop box around 100 miles (160 kilometers) east of Daytona Beach, plus a route over Florida and the Gulf of Mexico.<\/p>\n

The airplane returned to Cape Canaveral\u2019s Skid Strip runway, where ground crews have conducted additional testing on the rocket to look into the cause and implications of the data signature, which Joyce said was noted in an electrical system associated with the fist stage control system.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe issue that we had caused us to really focus in on a lot of the extremely detailed data that we look at from these flights,\u201d Joyce said in an interview Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just a matter of completing the data review, getting all the stakeholders briefed and up to speed, both internal to Northrop Grumman as well as NASA and our spacecraft customer, and that takes some time.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Northrop Grumman\u2019s L-1011 carrier jet, named Stargazer, arrived at Cape Canaveral\u2019s Skid Strip on Oct. 19. Credit: NASA\/Kim Shiflett<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Joyce said the issue currently under review is similar, but not identical, to unexpected data detected during a ferry flight of the Pegasus rocket and ICON satellite to Hawaii in June, en route to a launch staging base at the U.S. Army Reagan Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.<\/p>\n

Engineers noticed an unexpected telemetry signal from the rocket\u2019s rudder fin actuator after the L-1011\u2019s departure June 6 from Vandenberg on a two-day ferry flight to Kwajalein.<\/p>\n

During a planned stopover in Hawaii, officials decided to abort the mission and return the rocket to California for troubleshooting, giving up ICON\u2019s launch slot at the busy military test range at Kwajalein. Workers removed the rocket from the carrier jet and returned it to the Building 1555 hangar, where they traced the problem to a faulty sensor requiring replacement.<\/p>\n

That prompted NASA and Northrop Grumman to move the ICON launch from Kwajalein to a point off Florida\u2019s east coast.<\/p>\n

ICON will launch into a 357-mile-high (575-kilometer) orbit inclined 27 degrees to the equator. The roughly 600-pound (272-kilogram) satellite ended up weighing a little less than originally designed, allowing managers to relocate the launch from near the equator over the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean off Florida\u2019s east coast.<\/p>\n

With ICON\u2019s lower mass, the Pegasus has the ability to boost the satellite into the correct orbit without requiring a launch base so close to the equator. There are also more launch dates available at the Air Force-run Eastern Range at Cape Canaveral than at Kwajalein, which is often busy hosting military missile tests.<\/p>\n

ICON carries scientific instruments to investigate plasma waves in the ionosphere, a layer in the upper atmosphere where colorful auroras are generated. Changes in the ionosphere can also affect communications and navigation signals coming from satellites, and ICON will study how weather systems lower in the atmosphere can influence conditions at the edge of space.<\/p>\n

Joyce lauded the Air Force\u2019s 45th Space Wing at Cape Canaveral for the late change in ICON\u2019s launch site.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat normally take about 12 months in terms of mission planning and range coordination for a launch at a new launch range took about six months in this case when we came back from Kwajalein,\u201d Joyce said. \u201cWe had a long conversation with our NASA customer and clearly they preferred to have the launch here.\u201d<\/p>\n

NASA originally intended to launch the $252 million ICON mission in June 2017, but the mission was delayed after the mishandling of Pegasus rocket motors during transport to Vandenberg, where Northrop Grumman assembles Pegasus launchers, regardless of their ultimate launch location. Engineers also delayed the flight to assess the reliability of bolt-cutters used to jettison the Pegasus rocket\u2019s payload fairing and separate the satellite in orbit.<\/p>\n

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Artist\u2019s concept of the ICON satellite in orbit. Credit: NASA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe want to to make sure that we\u2019ve got a solid rocket, and that we\u2019ve got no risk going into this launch,\u201d Joyce said. \u201cObviously, we\u2019ve had the delays. We\u2019re going to get this right before we fly it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the last few months, Northrop Grumman returned ground support equipment for the Pegasus rocket and L-1011 carrier aircraft from Kwajalein to Vandenberg, then trucked the hardware to Florida in preparation for the mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it demonstrates the responsiveness of the Pegasus system,\u201d Joyce said of the late switch in launch sites.<\/p>\n

The Pegasus XL rocket is 55 feet (17 meters) long and is made up of three solid-fueled stages. Pegasus rockets have launched 43 times on satellite delivery missions, and ICON\u2019s launch will be the first Pegasus flight since December 2016.<\/p>\n

Assuming engineers can clear the Pegasus rocket for launch, the Air Force range \u2014 comprising a network of flight safety and tracking facilities \u2014 can support launch dates on Wednesday and Thursday. After that, the Air Force will be busy with pre-planned maintenance on range systems for a few days, Joyce said.<\/p>\n

The next launch scheduled on the Eastern Range after ICON is set for no earlier than Nov. 14, when a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is supposed to lift off from pad 39A at NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center with the Es\u2019hail 2 communications satellite.<\/p>\n

Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Technicians work on the Pegasus XL rocket last month at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, before its ferry flight to Florida. Credit: USAF 30th Space Wing\/Tony Vaulcin The launch of a NASA research satellite built to probe conditions along the boundary between Earth\u2019s atmosphere and space has been tentatively rescheduled for no earlier than Wednesday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1860,2493,2494,1827,25,190,554,2570],"class_list":["post-13531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-heliophysics","tag-icon","tag-ionosphere","tag-l-1011","tag-launch","tag-nasa","tag-northrop-grumman","tag-northrop-grumman-innovation-systems"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13531"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13531\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}