CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- A pair of satellites that will closely monitor Earth's oceans of water and air were safely lofted into orbit Friday on the centennial launch of a workhorse rocket that has reliably served the nation since 1989.
The 100th Boeing Delta 2 rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 10:07 a.m. EST (1507 GMT) and during the next two hours precisely delivered the Jason 1 and TIMED spacecraft into two separate orbits for NASA and the French space agency, CNES.
"It appears to be a very successful launch and we're very happy here at Vandenberg," said Chuck Dovale, the NASA manager from Kennedy Space Center in charge of the shot. "We're basking in the glory of this success."
Although trouble free after launch, the countdown before provided some challenges as gusting winds for a short time were blowing twice what was forecast and came close to the limits. The concern: with the mobile service tower rolled back from the 13-story rocket, the high winds could literally topple the vehicle.
To improve their chances of avoiding a scrub, Dovale said the launch team filled the Delta 2's first stage with its load of RP-1 kerosene fuel a little earlier than usual so the rocket would be heavier and more stable against the blustery conditions.
"Luckily the winds diminished throughout the count," Dovale said, and the booster lifted off on time, its fiery exhaust casting a warm glow over the California coast as the vehicle headed south just at sunrise.For Boeing, the launch marked an important milestone in the company's history.
"This mission illustrates the continuing Delta legacy," said Joy Bryant, Boeing's director of NASA expendable launch vehicle programs. "We've come a long way because of our commitment to success."
Originally evolved by NASA from the Air Force's Thor intermediate range ballastic missile, the Delta first launched in 1960. Upgraded and modernized a little bit here and there through the years, Boeing took the design to a new level in 1989 with the maiden flight of the Delta 2.
Principally designed to carry the Navstar Global Positioning System constellation into orbit for the Air Force, the Delta 2 found success as a commercial launcher as well, and with this 100th launch now boasts an impressive 98 percent success rate.
Science matters
Both of the satellites launched Friday promise to offer scientists new information that will help them better understand how planet Earth's climate is affected by the ocean and the atmosphere.
Jason 1, a joint effort of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the French space agency CNES, is designed to measure the surface topography of the ocean and by using that data help build more accurate models of how changes in the oceans affects Earth's climate.
Its mission is similar to that of Topex/Poseidon, which was launched in 1992 to map the oceans' surface topography. With Jason 1, the data gathering will continue but improvements in the measuring instruments should provide a more finely detailed picture of the ocean's surface.
While Topex/Poseidon continues to work, Jason 1 will fly a nearly identical orbit but will keep the two spacecraft about 60 seconds apart. Flying in tandem, the information they gather "allows the scientists working in the climatology region to determine the long term changes that we expect in the global ocean surface that affects climate and ultimately has an effect on society as a whole," said Gary Kuntsmann, Jason 1 project manager at JPL.
Meanwhile, the TIMED spacecraft -- a NASA satellite built by Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory -- holds a complement of instruments that will take a variety of measurements on a region of Earth's atmosphere that has traditionally not been studied because it's been difficult to do so until now.
Temperatures, wind patterns and solar radiation are among the data points TIMED will scan for between the altitudes of 40-110 miles (60-180 kilometers) above Earth's surface. TIMED is short for Thermosphere, Ionosphere, Mesosphere, Energetics and Dynamics.
Usually these heights are too great for airplanes to reach and too low for satellites to directly encounter.
Sounding rockets have helped for extremely brief periods of time. But with new instruments developed for TIMED, scientists will be able to gather data as they need it.
"They will help increase the fidelity of those models that allow us to know what's going on in the atmosphere as a whole," said Bruce Campbell, NASA's TIMED project manager from the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
Friday's launch was the seventh and final Delta mission of the year.
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