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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Sent a send to the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V Rocket In space on Wednesday evening (Nov. 4), following a 24-hour delay to change hardware, you can watch the action live.
The two-stage rocket will explode from Space Launch Complex 41 here Cape Canaveral Air Force Station In Florida, the U.S. government carries a classified load for the National Reassessment Office, which manages spy satellites.
you can Check out the release directly here And on the Space.com homepage, courtesy of the ULA, which starts 15 minutes before the liftoff. You can View launches directly from ULA.
The liftoff is set for EST (2254 GMT) at 5:54 pm, just after sunset. If the weather and clouds cooperate, the launch time may be dazzling as it is dusk for rocket launches; At dawn and dusk, the sun is set to illuminate the rocket’s glare and look like a giant jellyfish in the sky. These starters are often confusing for UFOs Strange thin clouds Made by. (Spoiler Warning: This is definitely not an alien.)
Related: What is it in the sky? A SpaceX rocket, but it’s definitely not like that
The 45th Meteorological Force has forecasters Predicted 70% chance for favorable release conditions on Wednesday night. The main concern is groundwater, which is expected to reach 15 to 20 nodes (17 to 23 miles or 28 to 37 km) from the northeast, blowing up to 26 nodes (30 miles or 48 km). A Official report Released Tuesday night (Nov. 3), meteorologists said they expect very clear skies and breezes. If the rocket does not land on Wednesday night, it is not clear when the backup date will be SpaceX is scheduled to launch an upgraded GPS satellite Thursday evening.
Appointed NROL-101, ULA’s fifth mission so far this year. The National Reassessment Office Is sparse with details about the payload, which is common to this type of work, but confirmed that the payload was designed and built by the NRO.
“NROL-101 supports the NRO’s overall national security mission to provide intelligence data to the U.S. intelligence community, the intelligence community, and the Department of Defense.” The NRO wrote a magazine kit For work.
The 45th Meteorological Force has forecasters Predicted 70% chance for favorable release conditions on Wednesday night. The main concern is groundwater, which is expected to reach 15 to 20 nodes (17 to 23 miles or 28 to 37 km) from the northeast, blowing up to 26 nodes (30 miles or 48 km). A Official report Released Tuesday night (Nov. 3), meteorologists said they expect very clear skies and breezes. If the rocket does not land on Wednesday night, it is not clear when the backup date will be SpaceX is scheduled to launch an upgraded GPS satellite Thursday evening.
Appointed NROL-101, ULA’s fifth mission so far this year. The National Reassessment Office Is sparse with details about the payload, which is common to this type of work, but confirmed that the payload was designed and built by the NRO.
“NROL-101 supports the NRO’s overall national security mission to provide intelligence data to the U.S. intelligence community, the intelligence community, and the Department of Defense.” The NRO wrote a magazine kit For work.
This aircraft marks the 29th voyage for the NRO and the 17th voyage launched on the Atlas V. Over the weekend, ULA officials conducted a readiness inspection for the launch. Early Monday morning (Nov. 2), the rocket took off from its hangar and landed at the launch pad on SLC-41, which is about a mile (half a kilometer) away.
Shortly after the rocket arrived, crews noticed a problem with the vehicle’s environmental control system. ULA officials say high winds may have damaged the conditional airflow line on the rocket’s payload. This problem requires a fix that the pad cannot do, so the crew took the vehicle to its integration facility for repair.
Tasks with the ULA President and CEO were completed on Tuesday night (Nov. 3) Tori Bruno, tweets The complex pipe was replaced with a reinforced one. The rocket was sent back to the pad to begin launch preparations.
After starting its 1,800-foot (550 m) journey, the rocket was launched and began a series of forward tests leading to refueling, which would begin two hours before a mission liftoff, if finally launched, as planned.
The mission marks the 86th aircraft of the Atlas V since 2002 and the fifth aircraft to fly this year. This is the ULA’s 30th launch to carry an NRO payload. The agency, which manages the U.S. government’s spy satellites, uses these eyes to provide optical and radar images of the sky, intercepting communications from enemies, as well as sending secure communications to intelligence agencies.
“The ULA is proud to play a key role in supporting our mission partners and national security by keeping our country safe, one release at a time,” said Gary Vents, Vice President of ULA Government and Business Programs in an e-mail statement.
Related: Pentagon SpaceX launches ULA national security mission
The 206-foot-tall (63 m) Atlas V is fueled by a mixture of liquid oxygen and RP-1, a refined form of kerosene used for space travel and liquid hydrogen at its top stage. The vehicle will be flown in a “531” configuration, with three solid rocket motors, 17.7 feet (5.4 m in diameter) and payload fairing.
Today’s 531 marks the fourth time the Atlas V has been flown in configuration, and the first to use the newly upgraded solid rocket motors. The GEM63 strap-on boosters are made by Northrobe Krumman and are designed to replace previous models made by Aerojet Rocket. The 66-foot (20 m) rocket motors each have an additional 373,800 pounds of propulsion. According to ULA, the GEM63s are easier to handle and less expensive than their predecessors.
ULA plans to use Beefeer version of GEM63XL on its next generation rocket Vulcan said, Which is currently under construction. By testing a smaller version on the Atlas V, the rocket manufacturer plans to fully test GEM’s capabilities before building one on a Vulcan.
The NRO has not released further details about this release or its payload. However, warning notices to pilots and potters and a Task profile animation Suggests that the rocket flies in a northeasterly orbit, which will eventually place it in a high-slope orbit with regular views of the northern hemisphere.
Today’s launch may be the first in a dual title, as SpaceX, an upgraded GPS satellite for the U.S. space force, prepares to pay its own government pay. Originally scheduled for October 2, the launch site was cleared at the last minute when engineers noticed a mechanical problem.
The team identified the cause of the anomaly and replaced the two engines in the rocket. If all goes as planned, the launch will explode on Thursday evening (Nov. 5) from a nearby launch pad at Space Launch Complex 40. The liftoff is set for 6:24 PM EST (2324 GMT) and the release will air on space.com.
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