They say that a million little miracles must happen all at once to stage a successful rocket launch – that is, one without the thing blowing up. Thus, the well-documented delays, the frustrations, the lost money.
Last week, I visited Cape Canaveral, Florida, to witness my own first launch – a $424-million U.S. Air Force communications satellite, WGS-10, aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta IV medium rocket. After I had bought my plane ticket, though, the launch was pushed back a day, for a technical problem. As soon as I changed my travel reservations, costing more than the ticket itself, the launch was pushed back yet again, to March 15. Ah, the frustration.
It’s not just mechanical issues that can push a launch. There is weather, of course, which is responsible for about half of all scrubs. Launches have certain time windows during which they can put satellites - or men - into Earth orbit. Our launch had a window of a few hours, starting just before 7 p.m. and ending just after 9 p.m. on the 15th.
Before launch, we were treated to some interesting activities by the Air Force and ULA. First, we ventured out to Launch Complex (Pad) 37B to inspect the Delta rocket, an impressive 236-feet tall. As we watched, the 10-million-pound Mobile Service Tower housing it rolled away on a metal track at a whopping 0.25 mph, eventually exposing the entire rocket. The beast was a regal sight, gleaming orange and white in the south Florida sun.
We also visited the Horizontal Integration Facility, where they actually assemble the rockets. A long five-meter-wide tube rested on a platform. Up close and personal, you realize just how big these things are. The main booster of the rocket we were viewing, we were told by Director & General Manager of Launch Operations Tony Taliancich, was a special piece – one of the last Delta IVs manufactured, to be replaced down the road by ULA's Vulcan.
Then it was time for some history. We visited the place where America’s first satellite launched - Pad 26. Our guide, Jim Hale, took us into the several-foot-thick concrete blockhouse just 400 feet from the pad, where the men who had launched the rocket, and the crude computers they used, had been housed. Then it was out to the pad itself to reminisce about 1958. The former Soviet Union had sent up the famous Sputnik satellite a year earlier, and that spooked the United States. Explorer 1 eased some of the American public’s concern about Soviet domination of space.
While we were there, we also stopped at Pad 5, from which in 1961 astronaut (and later moonwalker) Alan Shepard launched in his Redstone rocket, becoming the first American in space - and Pad 14, where John Glenn had ridden his Atlas rocket to become the first American to orbit the Earth. Both launches had been major events in the U.S. Cold War space race with the Soviets.
Finally, we visited the weather station at Morrell Operations Center. Launch Weather Officer Mike McAleenan explained how, in order of importance, weather can cause a launch to be scrubbed. The most dangerous thing is lightning, then high cloud cover, then high-altitude winds. What I thought would be the biggest factor - rain - was surprisingly low down on the scrub list.
In preparation for my launch viewing, I interviewed Lt. Erin Brown, Range Operations Controller (she is one of the public countdown voices), and Brig. Gen. Douglas Schiess, who oversees the Air Force 45th Space Wing mission at the Cape and Patrick Air Force Base. Clearly a rocket aficionado, Schiess told me not to try to take photos or video during the launch. “Just absorb it, take it all in,” was the General's advice. Sounded solid to me.
At around 5 p.m., it was an excursion via back roads to the Frequency Control and Analysis vans a few miles out - in this case UCS-8 - for us to witness the actual launch. There was nervous excitement in the air as we rode along. A launch can be called at any time and, just because the weather has cooperated (ours has), there are no guarantees.
Sure enough, with just minutes to go, a launch hold was called. A helium bottle on the first stage wasn’t cooperating. Once that problem was solved, there was a collective sigh of relief, but then there was another delay, this time for a NASA tracking issue. The tension at UCS-8 was now palpable.
With just under 45 minutes left in the launch window and with the sky blackening, countdown finally commenced….ten, nine, eight, seven…..two, one. Just before the countdown ended, there was a field of fire and smoke beneath the rocket, making me wonder whether something had gone seriously wrong. After a few seconds, though, the rocket inched upwards almost imperceptibly with about 1.7-million total pounds of thrust behind it, and, after a few more seconds, an intense rumble sent ripples through my chest. The thing lit up the night sky as if an atomic bomb had been detonated. Wow.
As the rocket accelerated, turned and headed east over the Atlantic Ocean, everyone clapped. Another launch, another satellite into Earth orbit. And me, a space nut from way back, well, I had checked off another item on my bucket list.
