NASA Expendable Launch Vehicle Status Report 6 June 2005

Mission: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)
Launch Vehicle: Lockheed Martin Atlas V 401
Launch Pad: Space Launch Complex 41 (SLC-41), Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS), Fla.
Launch Date: August 10, 2005
Launch Window: 7:53:58 to 9:53:58 a.m. (EDT)

The Electra instrument, a telecommunications package, was installed May 26. Electra performance testing was successfully completed May 27. Power-on testing continues. Final Command and Data Handling system performance testing is complete. Flight batteries are scheduled for installation next week.

The Centaur upper stage for the Atlas V arrives today at CCAFS. It will be taken to the hangar at the Atlas Space Operations Center. On June 17, it will be transported to the Vertical Integration Facility (VIF) at SLC-41 and hoisted atop the Atlas stage to begin checkout. The Atlas stage was erected May 6 in the VIF. A countdown wet dress rehearsal, with the launch vehicle fully fueled, is scheduled in early July.

The MRO will be transported from the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at KSC to the VIF at SLC-41 in late July. It will join the Atlas V for the final phase of launch preparations. The spacecraft will undergo functional tests and a final week of integrated testing and closeouts.

The MRO is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif., for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems is the prime contractor for the project, and providing launch services for the mission with International Launch Services.

Mission: CALIPSO/CloudSat
Launch Vehicle: Delta 7420 DPAF
Launch Pad: Space Launch Complex 2 (SLC2), Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB), Calif.
Launch Date: TBD
Launch Window: TBD

Initial CALIPSO state-of-health checks are complete. The Wide Field Camera is integrated with the spacecraft. A comprehensive checkout of the satellite is under way. CloudSat processing is complete. When processing resumes June 23, technicians will conduct battery reconditioning, spacecraft fueling and mate the lower Dual Payload Attach Fitting. The stacking of the Delta II launch vehicle at SLC2 will begin in mid-June.

Part of the NASA Earth System Science Pathfinder program, CALIPSO is a collaborative effort with the French space agency Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES); Ball Aerospace, Hampton University; Virginia; and France’s Institut Pierre Simon Laplace. Ball Aerospace is responsible for CALIPSO’s scientific instrument and communications suite, including the lidar and Wide Field Camera.