From KSC newsletter
Regards
Matt Fawcett
---------
NASA News <<...>>
National Aeronautics and
Space Administration
John F. Kennedy Space Center
Kennedy Space Center, Florida 32899
______________________________________________________________________
______ ________________________________
George H. Diller
Oct. 2, 2000
Kennedy Space Center
Nancy Neal
Goddard Space Flight Center
KSC Release No: 83-00
NOTE TO EDITORS/NEWS DIRECTORS:
HETE-2 SPACECRAFT SCHEDULED FOR LAUNCH ON SATURDAY, OCT. 7
The High-Energy Transient Explorer-2 (HETE-2) funded by
NASA
and built by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is scheduled
for launch at 1:45 a.m. EDT on Saturday, Oct. 7. Carrying the
spacecraft into orbit will be a Pegasus rocket built by Orbital
Sciences Corporation. It will be deployed from the Orbital Sciences
L-1011 aircraft at the Kwajalein Missile Range in the south Pacific.
HETE-2 is an international collaborative mission involving
the United States, France and Japan, each of which built one of the
spacecraft's three instruments.
The mission objective is to detect gamma ray bursts that
appear without warning from all corners of the universe. Scientists do
not know the cause of these great releases of energy that may last
only a few milliseconds or up to a minute. Gamma ray bursts occur once
or twice a day but seldom do they afford scientists a good look before
they fade away. HETE-2 will also be able to observe star systems that
suddenly flare up with little or no warning.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in
Cambridge, Mass., developed the HETE-2 satellite. MIT is responsible
for mission and science operations. NASA Headquarters in Washington,
D.C. and the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., manage
the mission. NASA's John F. Kennedy Space Center, Fla., is responsible
for management of the launch.
The countdown will be managed not at Kwajalein, but from
the NASA Mission Director's Center (MDC) at Cape Canaveral Air Force
Station. Communications and telemetry data from the L-1011 and the
Pegasus rocket will be relayed back to the MDC by satellite, making
this the first remotely conducted countdown by KSC launch management.
WORLD WIDE WEB AND VOICE CIRCUIT COVERAGE
Live coverage of the launch of HETE-2 aboard the Pegasus
Rocket from the Kwajalein Missile Range will be provided by a webcast.
No live NASA Television coverage is planned. The webcast location will
be highlighted on the NASA-KSC Home Page found at: www.ksc.nasa.gov
and www.kennedyspacecenter.com.
The webcast coverage will begin at 12:30 a.m. EDT on
Saturday, Oct. 7. It will conclude after spacecraft separation from
the Pegasus rocket approximately 12 minutes after launch.
A complete HETE-2 video package will be broadcast during
the
NASA TV Video File on Friday Oct. 6, at noon EDT. No news conferences
are planned.
-- end --
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