[Launch Alert] Vandenberg AFB Launch Schedule

Thu Jun 10 00:00:49 EDT 2004

                            LAUNCH ALERT

				     Brian Webb
			   Ventura County, California
                    E-mail: kd6nrp at earthlink.net
                Web Site: http://www.spacearchive.info

                                     2004 June 9 (Wednesday) 20:42 PDT
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                   VANDENBERG AFB LAUNCH SCHEDULE
                          As of 2004 June 9

		    Launch
		  Time/Window
  Date         (PST/PDT)		 Vehicle		Pad/Silo
--------	---------------		----------		--------

JUN?		To be announced		Minuteman III	  ---
ICBM test launch (non-orbital). Payload is one warhead (probably a
Mk-12). Impact area is in the Reagan Test Site at Kwajalein in the
central Pacific. Postponed following two unsuccessful launch attempts
on March 24th.

JUN		To be announced		Minuteman III	  ---
ICBM test launch (non-orbital). Payload is one or more unarmed
warheads (probably Mk-12). Impact area is in the Reagan Test Site at
Kwajalein in the central Pacific. Glory Trip 185GM

JUL		To be announced		Peacekeeper		  ---
ICBM test launch (non-orbital). Payload is unarmed warheads (probably
Mk-21). Impact area is in the Reagan Test Site at Kwajalein in the
central Pacific. Glory Trip 33PA?

Early July	~03:00			Delta II		SLC-2W
Payload is NASA's AURA scientific satellite

AUG-SEP	10:00-13:00			Falcon I		SLC-3W
Payload is the Naval Research Laboratory's TacSat-1 satellite. The
launch window is fixed and does not change if the launch date changes.

SEP		To be announced		Minuteman III	  ---
ICBM test launch (non-orbital). Payload is one or more unarmed
warheads (probably Mk-12). Impact area is in the Reagan Test Site at
Kwajalein in the central Pacific. Glory Trip 186?

OCT 18	Unknown			Pegasus XL		Offshore
Payload is DART satellite

NOV 9		08:00-10:00			Minotaur		SLC-8
Payload is XSS-11 satellite

DEC-JAN	~02:00			Delta II		SLC-2W
Payload is NOAA N environmental satellite. Launch time is based on
informed speculation

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     CASSINI SPACECRAFT NEAR FIRST STOP IN HISTORIC SATURN TOUR
                          NASA News Release

The most complex interplanetary mission ever launched  is about to
meet one of the solar system's enigmatic moons. Cassini will fly by
Phoebe, Saturn's largest outer moon, on Friday. The closest approach
is at approximately 4:56 p.m. EDT.

A final trajectory correction maneuver is scheduled for June 16. On
arrival date, June 30, Cassini will become the first spacecraft to
orbit Saturn. Once in orbit it will conduct an extensive, four-year
tour of the Saturn system, including its majestic rings and many known
moons.

"The arrival date and trajectory to Saturn were specifically selected
to accommodate this flyby, which will be the only opportunity during
the mission to study Phoebe at close range," said Dave Seal, mission
planner for the Cassini-Huygens mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif. "Phoebe's orbit is simply too far
from Saturn, at almost 13 million kilometers (about 8 million miles),
nearly four times as far as the next closest major satellite, Iapetus.
A later encounter is not feasible."

"The last time we had observations of Phoebe was by Voyager in 1981,"
said Dr. Torrence Johnson, former Voyager imaging team member, Galileo
project scientist and Cassini imaging team member. "This time around,
the pictures of the mysterious moon will 1,000 times better, as
Cassini will be closer," he said. Voyager 2 captured images of Phoebe
from about 2.2 million kilometers (about 1.4 million miles) away.
Cassini will obtain images from a mere 2,000 kilometers (about 1,240
miles) above the moon's surface.

Cassini will also collect spectroscopic and radar data that could
decipher the composition and origin of this distant moon. Cassini's
Phoebe images, already twice as good as returned by Voyager 2, show
large craters and variations in surface brightness.

te Phoebe will be heavily cratered in the higher resolution images we
expect to see in the next few days," said Dr. Peter Thomas, a member
of the imaging team and a senior research associate at Cornell
University, Ithaca, N.Y., who specializes in studies of small
satellites. "The hints of different brightness also suggest the
highest resolution images, several hundred times better, will show a
variety of materials," he said.

Discovered in 1898 by American astronomer William Henry Pickering,
Phoebe is of great interest to scientists. "With the instruments
Cassini carries, we might learn more about Phoebe's internal structure
and composition. What we have are many unanswered questions: Did it
ever melt? Does it have evidence of past interior melting? Was it ever
an icy body? Why is Phoebe in such an odd orbit?" said Dr. Dennis
Matson, project scientist for the Cassini-Huygens mission at JPL.

Phoebe has a diameter of 220 kilometers (about 136.7 miles), which is
equal to about one-fifteenth of the diameter of Earth's moon. Phoebe
rotates on its axis every nine hours and 16 minutes, and it completes
a full orbit around Saturn in about 18 months. Its elliptical orbit is
inclined approximately 30 degrees to Saturn's equator. Phoebe's
retrograde orbit means it goes around Saturn in the opposite direction
of the larger interior Saturnian moons. Previous ground-based
observations have shown water ice present on its surface.

Phoebe is also unusual as it is very dark. It reflects only six
percent of the sunlight it receives. Phoebe's darkness and retrograde
orbit suggest it is most likely a captured object. A captured object
is a celestial body caught by the gravitational pull of a much bigger
body, generally a planet. Some scientists believe Phoebe might even be
an object from the outer solar system, similar to the objects found in
the Kuiper Belt. The Belt is a collection of small icy bodies beyond
Pluto that were never drawn together by gravity to form a planet.

"The dark and odd-shaped Phoebe may be a piece of the building blocks
from which some of the planets formed," said Dr. Bonnie Buratti,
scientist on the Cassini-Huygens mission at JPL. "It might hold clues
about the early formation of our solar system."

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the
European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of
the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the
Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Office of Space Science,
Washington. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter.
For the latest images and information about the Cassini-Huygens
mission on the Internet, visit:

   http://www.nasa.gov/cassini

For information about NASA and agency programs on the Internet, visit:

   http://www.nasa.gov

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Copyright © 2004 Brian Webb. All rights reserved. This newsletter may
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reprinted elsewhere without permission if the source is clearly
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  Reprinted from Launch Alert (www.spacearchive.info/newsletter.htm)