Monday Launch from California Begins Countdown to Atlas 5 Retirement
upstart writes:
Monday launch from California begins countdown to Atlas 5 retirement - Spaceflight Now:
An Atlas 5 rocket standing on a launch pad at Vandenberg Space Force Base, set for liftoff Monday with the Landsat 9 Earth observation satellite, is one of 29 Atlas 5s remaining in ULA's inventory. Jessica Rye, a ULA spokesperson, confirmed last month that all 29 Atlas 5s have been sold to customers for future launches.
ULA received its final shipment of RD-180 engines from Russia earlier this year. A dual-nozzle RD-180 engine, made in Russia by NPO Energomash, powers the first stage of each Atlas 5 rocket, generating around 860,000 pounds of thrust at full throttle while guzzling kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants.
The new Vulcan Centaur will be driven by twin U.S.-made BE-4 main engines from Blue Origin, the space company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos. ULA says the Vulcan Centaur will have more lift capability, additional mission flexibility, and will be cheaper to operate than the existing Atlas 5 and Delta 4 rocket families.
There are three Delta 4 rockets left to fly on ULA's schedule.
The Landsat 9 mission is the latest in a series of environmental satellites developed by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey. The new mission is designed for a lifetime of at least five years, extending an unbroken data record of global land images that dates back to the launch of the first Landsat satellite in 1972.
[...] Liftoff is timed for 11:12 a.m. PDT (2:12 p.m. EDT; 1812 GMT)[*] from Space Launch Complex 3-East at Vandenberg, a military base around 140 miles (225 kilometers) northwest of downtown Los Angeles.
Launch is scheduled to occur 4 hours after this story goes live.
NASA live-stream of the launch on YouTube
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