VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. - NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, lifted off over the Pacific Ocean this morning on its way to map the entire sky in infrared light.
READ: READ: READ: FREE VIDEOS: WATCH VIDEO: DELTA ROCKET LIFTS OFF WITH WISE WATCH VIDEO: DELTA LAUNCH VEHICLE PROCESSING WATCH VIDEO: WISE SPACECRAFT PROCESSING ALL-ACCESS SUBSCRIBERS: DOWNLOAD VIDEO: DELTA ROCKET LIFTS OFF WITH WISE DOWNLOAD VIDEO: DELTA LAUNCH VEHICLE PROCESSING DOWNLOAD VIDEO: WISE SPACECRAFT PROCESSING DOWNLOAD VIDEO: LAUNCH WEBCAST REPLAY, 1.2 MBPS VIDEO - PART 1 DOWNLOAD VIDEO: LAUNCH WEBCAST REPLAY, 1.2 MBPS VIDEO - PART 2 DOWNLOAD VIDEO: LAUNCH WEBCAST REPLAY, 1.2 MBPS VIDEO - PART 3 DOWNLOAD VIDEO: LAUNCH WEBCAST REPLAY, 1.2 MBPS VIDEO - PART 4 DOWNLOAD VIDEO: LAUNCH WEBCAST REPLAY, 1.2 MBPS VIDEO - PART 5 A Delta II rocket carrying the spacecraft launched at 9:09 a.m. EST from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The rocket deposited WISE into a polar orbit 326 miles above Earth about 55 minutes later. For the WISE mission, the spacecraft was launched on a Delta II 7320-10C configuration vehicle featuring a ULA first stage booster powered by a Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne RS-27A main engine and three Alliant Techsystems (ATK) strap-on solid rocket motors. An Aerojet AJ10-118K engine powered the second stage. The payload was encased by a 10-foot-diameter composite payload fairing. The launch came after a relatively quiet countdown. Mission managers tracked a rain shower northwest of Space Launch Complex 2 at the central California air base and also kept close tabs on stiff upper-altitude winds. But the weather ultimately cooperated and the Delta II blasted off at the opening of a 14-minute window. "We hit the mark," said NASA Launch Director Chuck Dovale. "It was a great feeling." "WISE thundered overhead, lighting up the pre-dawn skies," said William Irace, the mission's project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "All systems are looking good, and we are on our way to seeing the entire infrared sky better than ever before." "This is our final launch of the year," said Col. David Buck, the 30th Space Wing commander and the launch decision authority for this mission. "With eight successful Western Range launches for this year, I'd say we have had an outstanding year. Having led such a professional and dedicated team, you can expect another flawless year of launches from the 30th Space Wing." "Today's launch showcased some of the scientific opportunities provided by our spacelift capabilities," Colonel Buck said. "The scientific data this satellite provides will help scientists answer some fundamental questions about the origins of our universe as well as providing astronomers with much needed data." The launch was the 16th in 2009 for United Launch Alliance and the 37th success in the 36 months since Lockheed Martin and Boeing merged the Atlas and Delta rocket families under a new joint venture partnership. The company's first launch came on Dec. 14, 2006, and since then, 11 Atlas Vs, 21 Delta IIs, and 4 Delta IVs have launched with 100 percent mission success. “I congratulate NASA, the 30th Space Wing, and all of our mission partners on a successful launch campaign, which culminated in today’s picture perfect launch,” said Jim Sponnick, Vice President, Delta Product Line. “My thanks to the NASA Kennedy Space Center Launch Services Program (LSP) for the outstanding teamwork demonstrated throughout the six ULA/NASA KSC launches this year. The men and women of ULA are extremely proud of our mission success record while merging the Atlas and Delta product lines into one cohesive team. Launching successfully 16 times in one year is no easy feat and 37 missions in 36 months is certainly a high water mark for our industry. We look forward to a great 2010 with several critical missions ahead of us.” Engineers acquired a signal from the spacecraft via NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System just 10 seconds after the spacecraft separated from the rocket. Approximately three minutes later, WISE reoriented itself with its solar panels facing the sun to generate its own power. The next major event occurred about 17 minutes later. Valves on the cryostat, a chamber of super-cold hydrogen ice that cools the WISE instrument, opened. Because the instrument sees the infrared, or heat, signatures of objects, it must be kept at chilly temperatures -- its coldest detectors are less than minus 447 degrees Fahrenheit. "WISE needs to be colder than the objects it's observing," said Ned Wright of UCLA, the mission's principal investigator. "Now we're ready to see the infrared glow from hundreds of thousands of asteroids, and hundreds of millions of stars and galaxies." Once on orbit, the WISE satellite will scan the entire sky with infrared light with a sensitivity hundreds of times greater than ever before, picking up the glow of hundreds of millions of objects and producing millions of images. The voluminous quantity of images the WISE satellite can generate will help scientists answer fundamental questions about the origins of planets, stars and galaxies, and provide data for astronomers. With the spacecraft stable, cold and communicating with mission controllers at JPL, a month-long checkout and calibration is under way. WISE will see the infrared colors of the whole sky with sensitivity and resolution far better than the last infrared sky survey, performed 26 years ago. The space telescope will spend nine months scanning the sky once, then one-half the sky a second time. The primary mission will end when WISE's frozen hydrogen runs out, about 10 months after launch. Just about everything in the universe glows in infrared, which means the mission will catalog a variety of astronomical targets. Near-Earth asteroids, stars, planet-forming disks and distant galaxies all will be easy for the mission to see. Hundreds of millions of objects will populate the WISE atlas, providing astronomers and other space missions, such as NASA's planned James Webb Space Telescope, with a long-lasting infrared roadmap.
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