CAPE CANAVERAL, AFS - A twenty-year era of Air Force Global Positioning System Satellite launches on the Delta 2 rocket is about to come to an end with Monday morning's scheduled launch of the final second-generation GPS satellite from the Cape Canaveral spaceport in Florida. Preparations for launch have been going smoothly and the weather forecast for the Delta's sunrise liftoff remains generally favorable.
DELTA 2 GPS 2R-21 MISSION BOOK AUGUST 17 LAUNCH WEATHER FORECAST LAUNCH HAZARD ADVISORY The 120-foot tall rocket carrying the GPS 2R-21 spacecraft is scheduled to liftoff from Space Launch Complex 17-A at 6:35 a.m. EDT at the beginning of a 14-minute window that closes at 6:49. The weather forecast calls for a 70% chance of acceptable conditions during the short window. The launch team will be watching for possible thick clouds and rain drifting through the rocket's flight path. "Typically... widely scattered showers develop over the coastal waters during the early morning hours and move towards the coast. The primary concern during the countdown and launch window will be for one of these showers moving over the pad and flight path," says the official Air Force 45th Weather Squadraon forecast. Monday's launch the last Air Force GPS mission to be launched on the United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket. This will also be the last of the IIR-(M) series of satellites. Future generations of the GPS system will be launched onboard the Delta IV and Atlas 5 EELV's. This will be the 48th successful launch of a Delta II GPS mission out of 49 total launches. After its completion, the success record for this program will stand at 97.9 percent. The first ever Delta II launch on Feb. 14, 1989, was the NAVSTAR II-1 mission, now commonly known as GPS. GPS IIR-21(M) is the eighth modernized NAVSTAR Global Positioning System Block II R-M military navigation satellite to launch. GPS is a space-based radio-positioning system nominally consisting of a minimum of 24-satellite constellation that provides navigation and timing information to military and civilian users worldwide. (The Spacearium / Space Media Corporation)
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