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Voyager adventures
This animation shows the Voyager spacecraft heading into the solar system's final frontier and the edge of interstellar space. (1min 24sec file)
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Mike Griffin at KSC
NASA Administrator Mike Griffin and Kennedy Space Center Director Jim Kennedy chat with reporters at the Cape on a wide range of topics. The press event was held during Griffin's tour of the spaceport. (27min 48sec file)
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Delta rocket blasts off
The NOAA-N weather satellite is launched aboard a Boeing Delta 2 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

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   Liftoff | Extended clip
   Umbilicals | IR tracker

NOAA pre-launch
Officials from NASA, NOAA, the Air Force and Boeing hold the pre-launch news conference at Vandenberg Air Force Base to preview the mission of a Delta 2 rocket and the NOAA-N weather satellite. (29min 54sec file)

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Countdown culmination
Watch shuttle Discovery's countdown dress rehearsal that ends with a simulated main engine shutdown and post-abort safing practice. (13min 19sec file)
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Going to the pad
The five-man, two-woman astronaut crew departs the Operations and Checkout Building to board the AstroVan for the ride to launch pad 39B during the Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test countdown dress rehearsal. (3min 07sec file)
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Suiting up
After breakfast, the astronauts don their launch and entry partial pressure suits before heading to the pad. (3min 14sec file)
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Astronaut breakfast
Dressed in festive Hawaiian shirts, Discovery's seven astronauts are gathered around the dining room table in crew quarters for breakfast. They were awakened at 6:05 a.m. EDT to begin the launch day dress rehearsal at Kennedy Space Center. (1min 57sec file)
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Training at KSC
As part of their training at Kennedy Space Center, the Discovery astronauts learn to drive an armored tank that would be used to escape the launch pad and receive briefings on the escape baskets on the pad 39B tower. (5min 19sec file)
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Discovery's crew
Shuttle Discovery's astronauts pause their training at launch pad 39B to hold an informal news conference near the emergency evacuation bunker. (26min 11sec file)

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Astronaut Hall of Fame
The 2005 class of Gordon Fullerton, Joe Allen and Bruce McCandless is inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame at the Saturn 5 Center on April 30. (1hr 24min 55sec file)
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'Salute to Titan'
This video by Lockheed Martin relives the storied history of the Titan rocket family over the past five decades. (4min 21sec file)
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Titan history
Footage from that various Titan rocket launches from the 1950s to today is compiled into this movie. (6min 52sec file)
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Vandenberg rehearses first Delta 4 rocket launch
BY JUSTIN RAY
SPACEFLIGHT NOW

Posted: May 25, 2005

Boeing's Delta 4 rocket launch team at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base today practiced countdown procedures during a real-life rehearsal in preparation for the next-generation booster's maiden West Coast liftoff in August.


Space Launch Complex 6 overlooks the Pacific Ocean. Credit: Boeing
 
Standing at the Space Launch Complex-6 pad, the mothballed site originally constructed in the 1960s for an Air Force space laboratory and rebuilt in the 1980s for the space shuttle, the two-stage Delta 4 rocket underwent the day-long test that exercised scripts for loading super-cold liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen propellants, engine steering checks and Range Safety activities, officials said.

Countdown clocks reached a simulated liftoff time around 3:50 p.m. local time (6:50 p.m. EDT; 2250 GMT), according to team members.

The rocket has experienced an extended stay on the pad awaiting its classified spacecraft payload. The launch will deliver the hush-hush cargo into orbit for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office, which is the government agency that flies the country's fleet of spy satellites.

Wednesday's rehearsal was the latest in a series of fueling and countdown simulation tests conducted in preparation for the first West Coast Delta 4 launch.

Boeing overhauled the 132-acre SLC-6 site since leasing the pad in 2000 for the Delta 4 program, enabling the new rocket family to place satellites into polar orbits. All four Delta 4 missions launched to date have occurred from Florida's Cape Canaveral to reach equatorial orbits.


The Vandenberg home of Delta 4 -- the massive Space Launch Complex 6 pad and (behind) the Horizontal Integration Facility. Credit: Boeing
 
Company officials held a formal pad dedication ceremony last month to celebrate the SLC-6 site's readiness.

"It's because of the hard work, dedication and perseverance of the Delta team that I'm able to stand here today and say to you: Men and women of the U.S. Air Force and the people of America, on behalf of the Boeing Delta team, we proudly present our completed Delta 4 launch infrastructure, meeting all the ... requirements for assured access to space of your satellite payloads," Dan Collins, Boeing's vice president of expendable launch systems, said during the event.

The inaugural Vandenberg liftoff is anticipated around August 30. If all goes well, that will be followed with a November launch carrying the next DMSP military weather satellite for the Air Force and another NRO mission next year.

But next up on the Delta 4 manifest is launch of the GOES-N civilian weather satellite from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Liftoff is currently slated for June 23. The Cape will also host the second Delta 4-Heavy rocket flight in late October when an Air Force missile-warning spacecraft is sent aloft.

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