ULA Vulcan Launch Readiness Review Completed
ULA Vulcan Launch Readiness Review Completed
Systems are "Go" for Launch Early Monday Morning
The Launch Readiness Review (LRR) is GO for Monday's liftoff of the inaugural United Launch Alliance Vulcan rocket on the Certification-1 (Cert-1) flight test. Liftoff is scheduled for 2:18 a.m. EST (0718 UTC) from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
The LRR, led by ULA Launch Director Tom Heter III, was completed Thursday morning at the Advanced Spaceflight Operations Center (ASOC). Leadership from ULA, the customers and the Space Force assessed the readiness of the rocket, payload and mission assets, discussed the status of pre-flight processing work, heard technical overviews of the countdown and flight, and previewed the weather forecast that projects an 85 percent chance of meeting the launch rules.
At the conclusion of the meeting, senior leaders were polled and gave a ready status for launch, then signed the Launch Readiness Certificate.
The Vulcan VC2S rocket, designated V-001, stands 202 feet tall and will launch the Astrobotic Peregrine lunar lander under NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative into a highly elliptical orbit more than 220,000 miles above Earth to intercept the Moon. It will also carry a Celestis Memorial Spaceflight Payload into deep space.
ULA will offer live reports from launch control in our automatically refreshing blog beginning Sunday at 8 p.m. EST (0100 UTC). The launch webcast starts at 1:30 a.m. EST (0630 UTC).