New Weather Satellite Deployed After Spectacular Delta IV Launch

A new national weather satellite is safely circling the planet tonight after a successful deployment from a Delta IV rocket that blazed a brilliant trail into Space Coast night skies after launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

The 224-foot-tall United Launch Alliance rocket blasted off from Launch Complex 37B at 6:57 p.m. and then arced out over the Atlantic Ocean as it sped toward space. The Delta IV lit up the horizon, climbed like a bright white ball and the streaked across the night sky as people at Kennedy Space Center and the air station cheered.

Two strap-on solid rocket boosters peeled away from the rocket about one-minute, 40 seconds into flight. They looked like falling orange embers as the boosters tumbled back down toward the ocean. The rocket zoomed to an initial orbit and then started a long coast before deploying the satellite four hours and 21 minutes after launch.

The launch was ULA’s 39th launch in 39 months since the company’s inception in December 2006. All have been successful.

It was the third and final Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) spacecraft to be launched under a contract with Boeing. Operational cost to the U.S. taxpayer: $2.35 billion.

A joint partnership of Lockheed Martin and Boeing, Unite Launch Alliance aims to send up its next mission from the Cape on April 19. An Atlas V rocket is slated to blast off that day with an experimental military spaceplane onboard.