A huge mobile service tower is scheduled to be backed away from a Delta IV Medium rocket at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station early Thursday, a move that will set the stage for the planned launch Thursday evening of a new military communications satellite.
The United Launch Alliance rocket and its payload -- a Widefield Global SATCOM spacecraft -- are slated to blast off from Launch Complex 37 at 7:22 p.m. Thursday. The launch window will extend through 8:43 p.m. that night.
The launch had been slated for 7:21 p.m. tonight, but managers pushed the flight back 24 hours as a result of an approaching storm that is expected to swamp parts of central Florida tonight and early Thursday.
Launch Weather Officer Joel Tumbiolo of the Air Force 45th Space Wing Weather Squadron is forecasting a 60 percent chance conditions will be acceptable for flight Thursday night. The primary concerns are the chance of rains showers and thick, electrically charged clouds that could cause the rocket to trigger destructive bolts of lightning in flight.
Here is a synopsis of the forecast: Strong line of thunderstorms currently over the Gulf of Mexico will move through central FL this evening. Cold frontal boundary will slow as it passes through the area during the day tomorrow, while becoming stationary over southern FL. Cloud cover and precipitation will still be a concern as warm, moist air flows over the shallow cool surface layer left in the wake of the frontal boundary. Coverage of rain will increase from south to north Thursday night and Friday as upper level impulses ride along the stalled frontal boundary from west to east. The primary concern on launch day and the following day will be the Thick Cloud Rule and flight through precipitation. Vehicle exposure pre-liftoff and liftoff wind constraints are not expected to be at risk.
Space news and analysis from Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral 
1 comment:
What a SCAM, to set the stage to look like competitors Lockheed and Boeing pretended to compete with each other for this multi-billion dollar Glorified Social Welfare Program.
What a big Surprise they are joined together at the hip and don't call themselves Lockheed or Boeing. They call themselves United Launch Alliance.
As usual the Tax Payers don't know where their money is going or who has it, or what it is being spent for.
The Govt has turned into a Big Business SCAM management tool.
Every once in a while they put up a satellite that nobody knows what it does or doesn't do. Everything is a secret except for the fact that the Tax Payers are paying through the nose in hard economic times brought on by just this type of crippling SCAM.
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