Although with each successive update the track of Idalia has slipped a little to the west, with the kind of time and money invested in hardware and people to get ready to launch, it's reasonable to slip your launches until the weather is more optimal. As recently as yesterday morning (August 28), United Launch Alliance tweeted that this morning would be the launch of an NROL payload, NROL107 also called SILENTBARKER.
ULA decided by yesterday evening to roll the vehicle back to their Vertical Integration Facility for safety. Since tomorrow is expected to be the peak of negative conditions on the Space Coast, I can't imagine them being ready to go earlier than Friday, although no launch date or time has been given.
This will be the final Atlas V launch for the NROL as both ULA and their customer plan to move to the Vulcan Centaur. The Atlas V has performed 17 previous launches for the National Reconnaissance Office. It will also be the most powerful version of the Atlas V, the 551 where the numbers describe 5 strap-on GEM-63 solid rocket boosters built by Northrop Grumman and a 5-meter long fairing (which is considered the "short" fairing in the Atlas V world). The vehicle is approximately 196 feet tall with the short fairing.
As of Tuesday evening, the next launch from the Cape Canaveral facilities is set to be a SpaceX Falcon 9 carrying the next load of Starlink satellites, called Starlink Group 6-13. Launch will be Thursday evening at 7:50 PM EDT from SLC-40.
A side note to this last item is that we had clear skies to watch Saturday night's launch of another batch of Starlink satellites from SLC-40, and it was the first launch we had been able to see clearly in weeks. The fun fact is that this put the total number of launched Starlink satellites over five thousand; to be precise, 5,005.
It makes sense to shut things down just in case. Especially since hurrimacanes often spawn tornados and other wind events that can roam far away from the eye.
ReplyDeleteAnd... the hurricane is huge. Eye is over water and the east side is over the Cape.
Especially with relatively expensive 'toys,' caution is a needful thing. Foul weather has caused too many issues in the past.
What was interesting about Hurricane Vidalia is that some storm spagetti-models were showing it doing a loop after running over Jacksonhell and coming back to whack the Cape area. Later spag mods aren't showing this, but since Launch Controls tend to be conservative, that might have had something to do with slipping the schedule.
What was interesting about Hurricane Vidalia is that some storm spagetti-models were showing it doing a loop after running over Jacksonhell and coming back to whack the Cape area.
DeleteThe first time I saw that, I laughed. Then I saw handful of models bringing back at various places along the coast and was uncomfortable. I think it was yesterday morning's update that had the last dot on the track starting to go south. Definitely "uh-oh". This morning's 8AM has the last spot (2AM Monday) back almost due east of the previous but still south of Bermuda.
The "5-m" for the PLF in the diagram notes the diameter. The length of the AV 5-m short PLF is 33.42 ft or just a bit over 10 m.
ReplyDeleteThanks! I had seen a website with an explanation of all that but I couldn't find it when I needed it.
DeleteUnfortunately, I see no update for this launch so I guess it's still "back at the shop" or VIF.
Yeah, still tbd, depending on range availability.
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