{"id":16484,"date":"2015-03-11T20:50:07","date_gmt":"2015-03-11T12:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/atlas-5-rolled-to-the-pad-for-thursday-nights-liftoff\/"},"modified":"2015-03-11T20:50:07","modified_gmt":"2015-03-11T12:50:07","slug":"atlas-5-rolled-to-the-pad-for-thursday-nights-liftoff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/atlas-5-rolled-to-the-pad-for-thursday-nights-liftoff\/","title":{"rendered":"Atlas 5 rolled to the pad for Thursday night\u2019s liftoff"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"mms_logo_lg\"<\/p>\n

CAPE CANAVERAL \u2014 Riding the rails to the launch pad Wednesday morning, the Atlas 5 rocket was rolled out to Cape Canaveral\u2019s Complex 41 for liftoff Thursday night to deploy four NASA satellites that will probe Earth\u2019s magnetosphere for a high-priority research project.<\/p>\n

Liftoff of the Magnetospheric Multiscale mission, or MMS, is slated for 10:44 p.m. EDT on Thursday, at the opening of a 30-minute window.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the perfect time for this mission,\u201d said Jim Burch, principal investigator of the MMS instrument suite science team at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. \u201cMMS is a crucial next step in advancing the science of magnetic reconnection. Studying magnetic reconnection near Earth will unlock the ability to understand how this process works throughout the entire universe.\u201d<\/p>\n

The United Launch Alliance booster was wheeled out aboard a mobile platform, emerging from the assembly building where the rocket\u2019s two stages, twin strap-on boosters and the payload were integrated over the past five weeks.<\/p>\n

The slow drive from the 30-story Vertical Integration Facility to the launch pad, which began at 10:01 a.m., used a pair of specially-made \u201ctrackmobiles\u201d to carry the rocket\u2019s 1.4-million pound mobile launching platform along rail tracks for the 1,800-foot trip.<\/p>\n

\"16760066436_3426f0647a_k\"<\/p>\n

The 195-foot-tall satellite booster will launch the MMS mission into a highly elliptical Earth orbit. Deployment of the spacecraft quartet begins an hour and 32 minutes into flight and concludes 15 minutes later.<\/p>\n

The rocket is flying the 421 vehicle configuration for the fourth time in 53 flights. The version features two stages, two solid rocket boosters and a four-meter-diameter nose cone. It is powered off the launch pad by an RD AMROSS RD-180 main engine and twin Aerojet Rocketdyne solids. The Centaur upper stage is equipped with an Aerojet Rocketdyne RL10A.<\/p>\n

Countdown clocks begin ticking at midday Thursday, leading to activation of the rocket, final testing and system preps.<\/p>\n

The day\u2019s available launch opportunity begins at 10:44 p.m. and closes at 11:14 p.m. EDT to send the rocket on an easterly heading into an equatorial orbit.<\/p>\n

There is a 70 percent chance of acceptable weather.<\/p>\n

The satellite constellation will fly through regions of magnetic field explosions in space to sample with its instruments the phenomenon called magnetic reconnection.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis a fundamental process and MMS is going to revolutionize our understanding of it,\u201d said Jeff Newmark, interim director, Heliophysics Division, NASA Headquarters in Washington.<\/p>\n

\u201cMagnetic reconnection is important to us as the engine of space weather,\u201d said Burch. \u201cThe MMS mission will conduct a definitive experiment in space that will finally allow us to understand how magnetic reconnection works.\u201d<\/p>\n

See our earlier MMS coverage.<\/p>\n

And see our Atlas archive for further information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CAPE CANAVERAL \u2014 Riding the rails to the launch pad Wednesday morning, the Atlas 5 rocket was rolled out to Cape Canaveral\u2019s Complex 41 for liftoff Thursday night to deploy four NASA satellites that will probe Earth\u2019s magnetosphere for a high-priority research project. Liftoff of the Magnetospheric Multiscale mission, or MMS, is slated for 10:44 […]<\/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":[4116,1708,4117,190,3159,750],"class_list":["post-16484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-av-053","tag-complex-41","tag-mms","tag-nasa","tag-rollout","tag-united-launch-alliance"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16484"}],"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=16484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16484\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}