28 days until launch.
The spacecraft is on the Pegasus rocket!
Here are two shots of the WIRE spacecraft mounted to its launch vehicle.
In the second photo, the first two stages of Pegasus are visible on the other
side of a contamination barrier, and the right half of the fairing is visible
in the corner behind the spacecraft.
The left photo shows Bruce Haines installing blankets on the spacecraft
side of the separation ring. The separation ring has a clamp band which is
released by electrically activated bolt cutters after the rocket is in orbit.
Springs then push the spacecraft away from the burnt-out third stage. The
right photo shows the bottom of the spacecraft--one of our last views of that.
The separation ring was on the Pegasus for the electrical interface test,
but it needs to be on the spacecraft for the mechanical mate. These photos
show that operation on Thursday. The photographers in the left photo are
collecting images for our launch-site-processing video tape.
The next three photos show the bottom blanket installation. Thursday
evening, Bruce and Grace Miller completed work on the bottom of the
spacecraft, and this morning the instrument team came in about 5:30am to
start disconnecting the liquid helium and vacuum lines from the cryostat.
After some last minute preparations, the mating dolly (Byrd Mobile) was
brought into position next to the Pegasus rocket. The wheels on the dolly
adjust the position of the spacecraft so that we could precisely align the
holes in the separation system. The second photo shows and Orbital employee
installing the bolts in the separation ring on the rocket side of the
interface. After tightening all of the bolts, we loosened the bolts holding
the spacecraft to the Byrd Mobile, lowered it and moved it out from under the
spacecraft. The last picture shows a close-up of the Byrd Mobile, with
stickers from the three of the four SMEX missions which have used it (FAST,
SWAS, TRACE, and WIRE). The SWAS sticker is off the picture to the left.
On Monday next week, we will run our compatibility test with the rocket, looking for any unexpected interference between the rocket electronics and the spacecraft electronics. Wednesday is flight simulation number 4.
Hydrogen load is currently scheduled for Saturday, February 6th, but a Delta launch now scheduled for no earlier than February 8th could interfere, since we need to evacuate the Astrotech facility during a Delta launch--the building is within the caution zone around the Delta.
Previous updates:
August 18, 1997 Structure and Cryostat progress
October 20, 1997 Structure qual and harness
installation
October 31, 1997 First powerup
November 7, 1997 Transponder integration, power
long functional
November 14, 1997 WIE and pyro
box integration
November 21, 1997 RF and ACS
integration
December 5, 1997 ACS testing
December 23, 1997 Work under spacecraft
January 9, 1998 ACS testing, gyro phasing
January 16, 1998 Instrument thermal simulator
January 23, 1998 Wire tracker
January 30, 1998 Build up solar array
February 6, 1998 Ops testing, remove transponder
February 20, 1998 Move to Building 7
March 12, 1998 Cleaning and Solar Array Testing
March 23, 1998 Prep for Environmental and into EMI
April 3, 1998 EMI and Vibration
April 20, 1998 Vibration and Shock
April 25, 1998 Thermal Balance
May 29, 1998 Instrument integration and Thermal
Vacuum
June 3, 1998 Spin Balance
June 17, 1998 Astrotech Tour and Magnetic
Calibration
June 30, 1998 QD qual, fairing fit
check, comprehensive testing
July 29, 1998
Ready to ship, QD testing
August 13, 1998 Launch delay
November 23, 1998 New launch date
January 19, 1999 WIRE at launch site
January 21, 1999 WIRE turnover/on Byrd Mobile
January 26, 1999 Instrument cooling, electrical
mate