{"id":15249,"date":"2016-09-08T01:08:18","date_gmt":"2016-09-07T17:08:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/photos-atlas-5-rocket-rolls-out-to-launch-asteroid-sampling-probe\/"},"modified":"2016-09-08T01:08:18","modified_gmt":"2016-09-07T17:08:18","slug":"photos-atlas-5-rocket-rolls-out-to-launch-asteroid-sampling-probe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/photos-atlas-5-rocket-rolls-out-to-launch-asteroid-sampling-probe\/","title":{"rendered":"Photos: Atlas 5 rocket rolls out to launch asteroid sampling probe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Poised to embark on a 7-year adventure to Asteroid Bennu and back, NASA\u2019s OSIRIS-REx sample return spacecraft was moved to the launch pad today aboard its Atlas 5 rocket for liftoff Thursday evening.<\/p>\n

The United Launch Alliance vehicle, equipped with a single strap-on solid-propellant booster for added performance, is scheduled for liftoff at 7:05 p.m. EDT (2305 GMT). Launch opportunities will be available every five minutes for two hours.<\/p>\n

Weather forecasters say there is an 80 percent chance of favorable conditions.<\/p>\n

The rocket was wheeled out aboard a mobile launcher platform, emerging from the hangar where the rocket\u2019s two stages, booster and the payload were integrated over the past month.<\/p>\n

First motion occurred at 9:10 a.m. EDT.<\/p>\n

The slow drive from the 30-story Vertical Integration Facility to the launch pad used a pair of specially-made \u201ctrackmobiles\u201d to carry the rocket\u2019s 1.4-million pound launching platform along rail tracks for the 1,800-foot trip.<\/p>\n

\u201cA great day for us on the OSIRIS-REx program,\u201d said mission leader Dante Lauretta.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a long time coming. I\u2019ve been working on this program since 2004 when we originally conceived of the idea of getting to a near-Earth asteroid, collecting material off its surface and bringing it back to Earth for analysis in our laboratories.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Atlas 5 rocket is flying the 411 vehicle configuration. The version features two stages, one solid and a 14-foot-diameter nose cone. It is powered off the launch pad by an RD AMROSS RD-180 main engine and Aerojet Rocketdyne SRB. The Centaur upper stage has an Aerojet Rocketdyne RL10-A-4-2 cryogenic engine.<\/p>\n

Photo credit: United Launch Alliance<\/strong><\/p>\n

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See earlier OSIRIS-REx coverage.<\/p>\n

Our Atlas archive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Poised to embark on a 7-year adventure to Asteroid Bennu and back, NASA\u2019s OSIRIS-REx sample return spacecraft was moved to the launch pad today aboard its Atlas 5 rocket for liftoff Thursday evening. The United Launch Alliance vehicle, equipped with a single strap-on solid-propellant booster for added performance, is scheduled for liftoff at 7:05 p.m. […]<\/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":[3428,724,3600,190,1527,3159,750],"class_list":["post-15249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-asteroid-bennu","tag-atlas-5","tag-av-067","tag-nasa","tag-osiris-rex","tag-rollout","tag-united-launch-alliance"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15249"}],"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=15249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15249\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}