[Launch Alert] Vandenberg AFB Launch Schedule

Wed Nov 30 21:35:57 EST 2005

                             LAUNCH ALERT

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

				        2005 November 30 (Wednesday) 18:22 PST
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		       VANDENBERG AFB LAUNCH SCHEDULE
			     As of 2005 November 30

The next Vandenberg AFB rocket launch will likely not occur until
February as the Western Range begins a planned two-month maintenance,
upgrade and refurbishment period on December 19. The upcoming Boeing
Delta II Delta IV launches are currently on hold due to a labor strike
and technical issues. Specific launch dates are currently difficult to
come by. The editor's best guess is that the next launch may be a
Minuteman III ICBM in February.

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

2006			To be announced		Delta IV		SLC-6
Classified National Reconnaissance Office payload. The DoD will
announce the exact launch time several hours in advance. NRO L-22

2006			To be announced		Delta IV		SLC-6
Payload is the DMSP F-17 military weather satellite

FEB?			To be announced		Minuteman III	---
ICBM test launch (non-orbital). Payload is one or more unarmed
warheads. Impact area is the Reagan Test Site at Kwajalein in the
central Pacific. The Air Force will announce the launch window a few
days in advance.

NET Mid-FEB		~02:00			Delta II		SLC-2W
Payload is the CloudSat and CALIPSO environmental satellites

Mid-FEB?		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.

FEB 28		05:57:21-07:19:21		Pegasus XL		Offshore
Payload is JPL's SpaceTech 5 satellite

MAR?			To be announced		Minuteman III	---
ICBM test launch (non-orbital). Payload is one or more unarmed
warheads. Impact area is the Reagan Test Site at Kwajalein in the
central Pacific. The Air Force will announce the launch window a few
days in advance.

MAR			Unknown			Minotaur		SLC-8
Payload is COSMIC scientific satellites

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	        SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ASTRONOMICAL EVENTS
			        for 2005 December

		        Time
   Date		(PST/PDT)		    		Event
-----------		---------		-----------------------------

DEC 1			07:01			New Moon
Moon passes between the Earth and the Sun and is invisible. Moon rises
at sunrise and sets at sunset

DEC 3			12:18			Iapetus Conjunction
Saturn's moon Iapetus (magnitude +11.0) is in inferior conjunction
with the planet and easy to find in moderate-sized amateur telescopes

DEC 3-4		---			Dark Sky Weekend
Best time this month to observe faint objects. Amateur astronomers may
hold observing sessions at dark sites

DEC 5			~19:00		Lunar Conjunction
The Moon passes 4° south of Uranus. Time and separation computed for
the Earth's center and may vary significantly for other locations

DEC 8			01:36			First Quarter
Moon Moon rises at noon and sets at midnight

DEC 11		~21:00		Lunar Conjunction
The Moon passes 1.3° north of Mars. Time and separation computed for
the Earth's center and may vary significantly for other locations

DEC 12		05:00			Mercury Western Elongation
Elusive Mercury attains its greatest angular separation from the Sun
and is visible low in the east at dawn.

DEC 12		20:48			Lunar Occultation
The Moon occults (passes in front of) the +5.0 magnitude star ZC472.
Star disappears at 20:48. The reappearance is not visible. Time
computed for downtown Los Angeles and will vary depending on your
location

DEC 14		00:00-05:20		Geminid Meteor Shower
Shower is expected to peak on DEC 13 at 21:00

DEC 15		08:15			Full Moon
Moon rises at sunset, sets at sunrise, and is visible all night

DEC 19		~01:00		Lunar Conjunction
The Moon passes 4° north of Saturn. Time and separation computed for
the Earth's center and may vary significantly for other locations

DEC 23		11:36			Last Quarter
Moon Moon rises at midnight and sets at noon

DEC 25		~06:00		Lunar Conjunction
The Moon passes 0.9° north of Spica. Time and separation computed for
the Earth's center and may vary significantly for other locations

DEC 30		19:01			New Moon
Moon passes between the Earth and the Sun and is invisible. Moon rises
at sunrise and sets at sunset

DEC 31-JAN 1	---			Dark Sky Weekend
Best time this month to observe faint objects. Amateur astronomers may
hold observing sessions at dark sites

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                 ROCKWELL COMPONENTS ENROUTE TO MARS

THOUSAND OAKS, CA -- CRISM (Compact Reconnaissance Imaging
Spectrometer for Mars) is one of six scientific instruments on NASA's
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force
Station in Florida on August 12, 2005. Two major imaging sensor
components of the CRISM instrument were designed and fabricated by
Rockwell Scientific Company.

A visible-infrared hyperspectral mapper developed by the Johns Hopkins
University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., CRISM will
search for evidence of minerals that form in the presence of water,
which might have been left by hot springs, thermal vents, lakes, or
ponds far back in Mars' history when water may have been present on
the surface. CRISM will also aid in mapping the geology, composition
and stratigraphy of Mars' surface features. Rockwell Scientific
contributed both a Mid-Wave Infrared (IR) and Visible IR subsystems to
the project. The MWIR subsystem is comprised of a MWIR sensor and a
3-zone order sorting multi-layer interference filter packaged in a
cold shield. The MWIR sensor is a mercury cadmium telluride (HgCdTe)
array with 640 (spatial) x 480 (spectral) pixel format for high
resolution with a 980nm to 3960nm spectral bandpass. The 3-zone filter
consists of two broadband filters and one linear variable filter. The
Visible subsystem uses a silicon photodiode array with a 380-1050 nm
spectral bandpass and a 2-zone order sorting filter. The visible array
has the same pixel format and read-out integrated circuit (ROIC) as
the MWIR sensor, greatly simplifying the data acquisition system. The
combination of the high-resolution sensors and the multi-zone order
sorting filters provides the CRISM instrument a greater capability to
map spectral variations than any similar instrument sent to Mars. The
visible and infrared spectrometers will track regions on the Mars
surface and map them at scales as small as 60 feet across, from an
altitude of 186 miles. The instruments will read 544 "colors" to
detect minerals in the Mars surface. Its highest resolution is about
20 times sharper than any previous look at Mars in mid-wave infrared
wavelengths, and boasts 5 times better spatial resolution than any
previous look in the thermal infrared spectral region.

"We are very excited to have played a significant role in this
project," says Jianmei Pan, Program Manager of the CRISM program at
Rockwell Scientific. "CRISM plays such an important role in Mars
exploration, and our sensor systems are critical in collecting the
data to identify the sites most likely to have contained water and
which would make the best potential landing sites for future Mars
exploration missions."

RSC is world renowned for their high performance sensor designs. They
continue to develop focal plane arrays (FPAs) that operate within a
broad spectrum of light from below 0.3 micron ultra-violet to 18
micron long-wave infrared for defense, astronomy/scientific, and
commercial applications. RSC supplied NASA's Hubble Space Telescope
with extremely sensitive FPA mosaics to capture light from distant
galaxies. Today, RSC is working on a contract for NASA to provide
infrared FPA's for Hubble's successor -- the 2011 James Webb Space
Telescope. RSC has meshed its diverse engineering expertise in sensor
and readout integrated circuit (ROIC) design to offer complete
sub-system packages that incorporate state-of-the-art sensors with
custom mixed-signal CMOS ROIC design and fabrication.

Information courtesy of Rockwell Scientific

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                        ASTEROID OCCULTATION

The following is a message from occultation expert David Dunham:

"If you have a 2-inch or larger telescope, we need your help to
observe the occultation of 8.9-mag. SAO 139619 = TYC 4974-00584-1 by
the 302-km asteroid (52) Europa, one of the ten largest asteroids
(NOT the Galilean satellite of Jupiter with the same name), visible
Saturday morning Dec. 3rd in a path passing over much of the
southwestern USA.  Please get up a little earlier than usual this
weekend morning to observe this possibly best asteroidal occultation
of 2005 in the USA.  We are making plans to cover the path as well
as we can, with several observers being mobile; please let us know
your plans to try to observe this occultation so that one of the
mobile observers doesn't waste effort duplicating your chord across
the asteroid.  For most observers, the occultation will occur at
13:07 UT (5:07 am PST = 6:07 am MST).  The predicted northern limit
passes over San Pablo Bay north of San Francisco, CA; just north of
Las Vegas, NV and Flagstaff, AZ; and south of Albuquerque, NM, while
the predicted southern limit passes over Santa Barbara, the San
Fernando and San Gabriel Valleys, and Riverside, Calif.; just north
of Tucson, AZ; and south of El Paso and near Ft. Davis, Texas. Near
the path center are Monterey, Tulare, Ridgecrest, and Needles,
Calif.; Prescott, AZ; and Truth or Consequences and Carlsbad, NM. At
El Paso, the Sun altitude will be -9 deg., so twilight will be
strong enough to cause some problems there, especially seeing
fainter stars in finder scopes - observers in eastern Arizona and
locations farther east should locate the star half an hour or more
before the event while the sky is dark enough to "navigate", then
follow the star to the event.  That way, even observers in Midland
and Lubbock, Texas (where the event will occur at 13:08 UT = 7:08 am
CST) might have a chance to observe this occultation, but east of
there, I think it will be hopeless, as the target star in Virgo is
in the approximate direction of sunrise. For more information about
this event, see Steve Preston's Web site at
http://www.asteroidoccultation.com/2005_12/1203_52_3769.htm.  It has
detailed finder charts of different scales to easily locate the
star.  Some fairly detailed maps showing major highways are on that
Web site, with even more detailed maps available at Derek Breit's
and Charlie Ridgway's Web sites described below.

If you can help us observe this occultation, either from your home
or observatory, or as a mobile observer, please inform me and Derek
Breit (e-mail breit_ideas at hotmail.com ).  For coordinating coverage
of this occultation, a list of stations sorted by distance in km
from the predicted central line, can be found on Derek Breit's Web
site at http://www.poyntsource.com/BREIT_IDEAS/Europa.htm .
You can search for your, or your town's or observatory's, name to
see just when the occultation is predicted for your area (that time
should be accurate to within 15 seconds or so), the probability for
having an occultation there, and the predicted Sun and star
altitudes at the time.  If your station is not in the list, send me
and/or Derek Breit your coordinates, or your street address, and we
can add it. Derek will update his Web site with information
indicating which distances from the central line (or "chords") will
have observers trying to time the occultation.  Some observers have
already specified their intentions; those at fixed sites are
indicated in red in Derek's list, and mobile observers are in green.
For information about timing occultations, see
http://iota.jhuapl.edu/timng920.htm .

Let me know your plans, whether you plan to observe from a fixed
site or are mobile, needing a line to aim for.  During the next
nights, I'll distribute an edited down list of stations from Derek
Breit's more extensive list including only those who have said that
they will try to observe this good event.  I hope to try to observe
the occultation from multiple sites across the path, probably mostly
near I-15 north of Barstow, Calif., but may select a different area,
depending on the weather (I'll be flying into Ontario airport,
arriving there about 7 pm Friday, but am connecting through Phoenix
so I could change to go there instead if the weather forecast is
better in Arizona).  If any others want to help me with this, let me
know.

You can see the path superimposed on very detailed
maps and satellite imagery on Charlie Ridgway's Web site.
For general information about his site,
see http://digitalmagic.i8.com/Astronomy/Occultations/ .
For the map specifically for the Europa occultation, see

http://digitalmagic.i8.com/Astronomy/Occultations/051203_Europa.html

On this site, you can enter a distance from the central line in km
in a special "offset" box (just write over the default value of 1000
given there) and it will plot gray lines at that distance north and
south of the central line.

Type your distance number (in km) in the box just to the left of the
"Plot Offsets" box at the bottom of the map.  You need to type a
number with no sign, then two gray lines are plotted; zoom in on the
gray line northeast of the yellow central line if your distance is +
and on the gray line southwest of the central line if your distance
is -.  You can move the map by grabbing it (left-clicking and
holding down) and you can zoom in or out by left-clicking on the
scale in the upper left part of the map (+ on that scale means "zoom
in" for more detail over a smaller area).  You can toggle between
"map" (showing town and road names), "satellite" for satellite
imagery, and "hybrid" for both together.

The target star is in Virgo 11 deg. northwest of Jupiter and 9 deg.
northeast of Spica at J2000 RA 13h 54m 58.3s, Dec -05 deg. 43' 55".
The target star is only 9' north of 7.8-mag. SAO 139617 that should
be visible in all finder telescopes; also, 11' east and a little
south of the target star is 8.6-mag. SAO 139610.  The spectral class
of the target star is B5.  If an occultation occurrs, it would last
up to 8 seconds with a 3-magnitude drop."

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