Climate Monitoring Satellite, LOFTID Experiment Launched by ULA

A climate monitoring satellite for NOAA and NASA, along with NASA's Low-Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator (LOFTID), lifted off from California's Vandenberg AFB in the early morning hours Thursday. The Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS)-2 mission and LOFTID experiment were carried into orbit by a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket.

"We depend on accuracy and timeliness of weather prediction models for enhanced weather forecasting and climate observations."

Gary Wentz, ULA vice president of Government and Commercial Programs.

The Atlas V rocket delivered the JPSS-2 climate Monitoring Satellite to a sun-synchronous low-Earth orbit. After delivering the JPSS-2 spacecraft, subsequent burns by the Centaur upper stage lowered the altitude to a re-entry trajectory to deploy the LOFTID experiment. Once separated, LOFTID reentered Earth's atmosphere, deployed its parachute and landed off the coast of Hawaii. This experiment demonstrates how an inflatable aeroshell, or heat shield, could deliver heavy payloads safely through the atmosphere to the surface of Earth and potentially other planets.

Climate Monitoring Satellite will Improve Weather Forecasting

"We depend on accuracy and timeliness of weather prediction models for enhanced weather forecasting and climate observations. Our ULA team is proud to launch the JPSS-2 mission that supports advanced forecasting of extreme weather and global climate monitoring," said Gary Wentz, ULA vice president of Government and Commercial Programs. "Additionally, we look forward to reviewing the data collected from LOFTID as we explore Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator (HIAD) technology for engine reusability on our future Vulcan rocket. Successfully deploying these two payloads is a monumental achievement; thank you to our mission partners for their outstanding teamwork."

"The NASA and ULA public-private LOFTID partnership was the ideal pairing opportunity for demonstrating our Vulcan reuse plans," said Mark Peller, ULA vice president of Major Development. "This demonstration allows ULA to focus on launch integration applications for engine recovery including parachute development, transportation and recovery, flight environments, precision navigation for landing and recovery and more."

LOFTID Mission Supported by Redwire

Under the contract with NASA’s Langley Research Center (LaRC), Redwire provided the LOFTID mission with an Engineering Development Unit (EDU) and flight variants of the Ejectable Data Recorder (EDR) hardware. The EDR consists of three flight components: The Ejectable Data Module (EDM) (pictured, left) and the Ejectable Data Module Interface (EDMI) (right) supplied by Redwire, and the ejection system supplied by NASA. Redwire also provided ground systems hardware, specifically the Flight locator beacons, and ground support modules (including, ground stations, RF relays and mobile phones) to assist with locating and recovering the EDMs. Flight data, including video and onboard telemetry, recorded into the EDR will help evaluate large inflatable heat shield technology, which could support future use in returning large payloads to Earth and sending cargo and crew systems to Mars.

A Flight Uplook wireless camera for the LOFTID mission was provided by Redwire via a previous contract with NASA’s Ames Research Center. Video from the Uplook camera of the superheated atmosphere in the wake of the heat shield will provide valuable insight for the heat shield technology.

(Source: ULA and Redwire news releases. Images provided by NASA, Redwire and from NOAA Video)