Avion

Issue date: 12/1/09 Section: Campus News

Media Credit: Ben Cooper/Space Flight Now

After a week delay, the United Launch Alliance's (ULA) Atlas V rocket launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 1:55 a.m. last Monday morning.

On Saturday, November 14, the launch was postponed due to technical difficulties. A power cut out in the Ordinance Remote Control Assembly (ORCA) caused the launch to be scrubbed. The vehicle was rolled back from the pad for engineers to work on the problem.

Unfortunately, the ORCA system turned out to be only the first issue for the rocket. At the beginning of the evening on its rescheduled launch date, the weather looked bleak with high cloud cover. The weather improved over the next few hours and around midnight, a window opened up for launch, beginning at 12:30 a.m. High level wind speed and shear delayed the launch again multiple times over the next hour. A suitable flight profile was obtained around 1:45 a.m. and the rocket successfully launched at 1:55 a.m.

The Atlas V is carrying a commercial Intelsat 14 telecommunications satellite into geosynchronous orbit. The satellite will provide service to customers in Europe, Africa, and the Americas. The Department of Defense (DoD) also has a secondary payload aboard the launch vehicle. The DoD's Internet Routing in Space project will open the door to more advanced communications in space.

ULA was formed in 2006 by Lockheed Martin and Boeing to provide the United States with spacecraft and launch systems. In addition to the Atlas V, ULA uses the Delta II and Delta IV launch vehicles for their missions. The next ULA launch is a Delta IV that will take a communications satellite into orbit to assist the US military. It is scheduled for December 2, 2009.

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