[Launch Alert] Launch Tomorrow
Brian Webb
[email protected]
Tue, 5 Aug 2003 05:31:00 -0700
ASTRONOMY/SPACE ALERT FOR SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Brian Webb
Ventura County, California
E-mail: [email protected]
Web Site: http://home.earthlink.net/~kd6nrp
Reaching more than 2,150 e-mail addresses worldwide
2003 August 5 (Tuesday) 05:15 PDT
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MINUTEMAN LAUNCH TOMORROW
A Minuteman III strategic missile is scheduled for launch from
Vandenberg AFB early Wednesday morning, August 6th. The routine test
will send three unarmed warheads on a ballistic (non-orbital)
trajectory to the central Pacific.
The vehicle will probably leave its silo at northwest Vandenberg at
01:31 PDT or sometime shortly afterward. The launch window extends
from 01:01 to 07:31* PDT.
The vehicle will quickly climb into the night sky and send the
warheads on a 30-minute trip to the Reagan Test Site at Kwajalein
atoll, some 4,200 nautical miles downrange.
*The Vandenberg AFB news release gives the end of the launch window as
07:01. Every previous Minuteman III launch I can recall used a six
hour window. That would make the end of the window 07:01.
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MINUTEMAN III FLIGHT EVENTS
The following table is a generic listing of flight events for
Minuteman III launches from Vandenberg AFB. The times, altitudes, and
distances may vary slightly for each launch.
Downrange
Time Altitude Distance
mm:ss Event (NM) (NM)
----- ----------------------- -------- ---------
00:00 Stage 1 ignition 0 0
01:01 Stage 2 ignition 16 18
02:06 Stage 3 ignition 49 120
03:05 Stage 3 separation 123 210
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LAUNCH OBSERVING TIPS
The Minuteman III is bright during its boost (launch) phase. Weather
permitting Wednesday's launch should be visible to the unaided eye for
hundreds of miles.
Although the naked eye is a good instrument, you will see much more if
you use optical assistance. Binocular are good, but tripod-mounted
binoculars are even better. The best view will be through an
astronomical telescope.
One of the more interesting aspects of the launch occurs following
stage 1 - stage 2 separation at T+ 01:00. At that time, the spent
first stage will still be burning as it tumbles, creating a flashing
point of light.
Coastal low clouds and fog could be a problem at launch time. If you
live within 50 miles of the coast, try observing the launch from the
mountains above 3,000 feet.
If you see the launch, be sure to send me a detailed report.
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The following is a news release from Indiana
University.
WORLD'S LARGEST ASTRONOMICAL CCD CAMERA INSTALLED
July 29, 2003
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- The world's largest astronomical camera has been
installed on Palomar Observatory's 48-inch Oschin Telescope in
California. This telescope has been working to improve our
understanding of the universe for nearly 55 years. The new upgrade
will help it to push the limits of the unknown for years to come.
The new camera is known as QUEST (Quasar Equatorial Survey Team).
Designed and built by astrophysicists at Indiana and Yale
universities, QUEST recently "saw" its first starlight and is now
scanning the sky.
In 2001, an electronic camera known as the Near-Earth Asteroid Tracker
was installed in the Oschin Telescope. The camera, which employed a
charge-coupled device (CCD) to detect light, was very successful.
During its tenure on Palomar, the NEAT team discovered 189 near-Earth
asteroids and 20 comets.
A charge-coupled device is a light-sensitive integrated circuit that
stores and displays the data for an image in such a way that each
pixel in the image is converted into an electrical charge whose
intensity is related to a color in the visual spectrum. The QUEST
camera has an array of 112 CCDs.
The Oschin Telescope had to undergo some major changes to accommodate
the QUEST camera. Under the oversight of Richard Ellis, director of
Palomar Observatory, this process was guided by Robert Thicksten and
Hal Petrie of the California Institute of Technology. The delicate
installation of the camera and its electronics inside the telescope
was hand led by Mark Gebhard (Indiana University), William Emmet (Yale
University) and David Rabinowitz (Yale University). The camera's
readout electronics were constructed in the Physics and Astronomy
departments at Indiana University by Gebhard and Brice Adams, under
the direction of James Musser, Kent Honeycutt and Stuart Mufson. The
hardware for the QUEST camera was constructed by the Yale University
Physics Department under the direction of Charles Baltay.
In addition to the usual point-and-shoot mode, the new camera is
designed to work in the drift scan mode. The telescope is pointed at
the sky but does not move to counteract the rotation of the Earth.
Instead, various objects in the sky gradually drift across the field
of view at the same rate as the computer records data from the CCDs,
producing photographs that are long strips of the sky. Astronomers
will use these photographic slices of the sky to look for quasars,
supernovae, asteroids and more.
Last year, Caltech astronomers Chad Trujillo and Mike Brown used the
NEAT camera on the Oschin Telescope to find the distant world known as
Quaoar. Quaoar is about half the size of Pluto, making it the biggest
object to be found in our solar system since Pluto was discovered in
1930. Quaoar is the largest known member of the Kuiper Belt, a swarm
of thousands of icy objects that orbit beyond Neptune. Brown is
convinced there are more big Kuiper Belt objects, possibly as big as
the planet Mars, and he will use QUEST to look for them.
Other scientists plan to use the camera to find objects that might be
quasars. Quasars are the very bright cores of distant galaxies that
are thought to contain supermassive black holes. They are among the
most luminous objects in the universe. Any quasar candidates that are
found with the Oschin Telescope will be looked at again with Palomar's
200-inch Hale Telescope. Those objects that the Hale Telescope
confirms to be quasars will be the targets of more detailed study with
one of the 10-meter Keck Telescopes in Hawaii.
A similar approach will be used as distant galaxies are probed in a
search for exploding stars known as supernovae. The QUEST camera will
do the survey work, suspected supernovae will be looked at with the
Hale Telescope, and supernovae of the right type will be scrutinized
at one of the Keck Telescopes. Astronomers will use data from these
exploding stars to try to confirm that the universe is accelerating as
it expands.
Palomar Observatory, owned and operated by the California Institute of
Technology and located in north San Diego County, Calif., supports the
research of Caltech faculty and students, and that of researchers at
Caltech's collaborating institutions: Indiana University, Cornell
University, Yale University and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
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PENTAGON RELEASES REPORT
The Department of Defense recently released a report to Congress on
the Military Power of the People's Republic of China. The report
covers a variety of topics including China's missile and space
capabilities.
A copy of the report is available on-line at:
http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/20030730chinaex.pdf
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GLOSSARY
mm:ss Minutes and seconds
NM Nautical miles. A nautical mile is 6,076.115 feet in length.
The statute mile used in everday life is 5,280 feet long.
PDT Pacific Daylight Time
T+ Elapsed time since launch