Launching From Half Way Around The World

TECH SPACE

"This is a great opportunity to demonstrate that we can launch anytime, anywhere, which is one of the program's strategic goals," said Chuck Dovale, NASA ELV launch manager. - Orbital image

Cape Canaveral - Oct. 12, 2000
For the first time, NASA's Expendable Launch Vehicle Services at Kennedy Space Center has remotely managed a rocket launch. The High-Energy Transient Explorer 2 (HETE-2) - a satellite to detect gamma-ray bursts - was launch October 9, at 1:38am EDT via a Pegasus vehicle from the Kwajalein Missile Range in the South Pacific.

Because the Kwajalein site does not have a monitoring setup necessary for the level of management required by NASA, a system for remotely monitoring the launch was created at KSC. Three separate communication channels have been setup for voice and data transmission as a fail-safe measure.

"This is a great opportunity to demonstrate that we can launch anytime, anywhere, which is one of the program's strategic goals," said Chuck Dovale, NASA ELV launch manager.

Remote monitoring has been used previously by the KSC team on certain secondary aspects of managing a launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base. That monitoring helped prove to program leaders that remote launch monitoring was a viable alternative in certain situations, Dovale said.

The Kwajalein site was chosen for the launch because of its required inclination, less than 5 degrees with of goal of less than 2 degrees.

KSC assumed lead center responsibility for NASA's acquisition and management of ELV Launch Services at the start of fiscal year 1999. Separate ELV programs managed by Goddard Space Flight Center and Glenn Research Center were integrated and based at KSC.

Now successfully on orbit, HETE-2 will locate mysterious gamma-ray bursts and other explosive cosmic phenomena. The bursts represent the great releases of energy and scientists do not know what causes them.

HETE-2 will detect up to a thousand bursts a year and, for about 30 of these bursts, provide very detailed information about their location and spectra, or light characteristics

SPACE SCIENCE

Pegasus Sends Gamma Ray Scope Soaring

Greenbelt - October 9, 2000
A new gamma ray burst mission, the High-Energy Transient Explorer (HETE-2), made its entrance into space Monday morning at 1:38 a.m. EDT from the Kwajalein Missile Range in the Marshall Islands.

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