[Launch Alert] Vandenberg AFB Launch Schedule

Sat Aug 1 08:43:26 EDT 2009

                             LAUNCH ALERT

                              Brian Webb
                     Ventura County, California
                         kd6nrp at earthlink.net
                     http://www.spacearchive.info

                                2009 August 1 (Saturday) 05:33 PDT
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                   VANDENBERG AFB LAUNCH SCHEDULE
                         As of 2009 August 1

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

AUG 23            To be announced         Minuteman III     ---
Vehicle will probably send one or more unarmed warheads on a ballistic
trajectory to Kwajalein in the central Pacific.  

SEP 3?            09:12                   Atlas V          SLC-3
Payload is the DMSP F18 military weather satellite.  

OCT 6             ~11:35                  Delta II         SLC-2W
Payload is the WorldView-2 commercial reconnaissance satellite.  

NET DEC 10        To be announced         Delta II         SLC-2W
Payload is the WISE scientific satellite.  

JAN 23            To be announced         Taurus           576-E
Payload is the Glory scientific satellite.  

The above schedule is a composite of unclassified information
approved for public release from government, industry, and other
sources. It represents the Editor's best effort to produce a schedule,
but may disagree with other sources. Details on military launches are
withheld until they are approved for public release. For official
information regarding Vandenberg AFB activities, go to
http://www.vandenberg.af.mil.

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  TINY DIAMONDS ON SANTA ROSA ISLAND GIVE EVIDENCE OF COSMIC IMPACT
         University of California Santa Barbara News Release
                            2009 July 21

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. -- Nanosized diamonds found just a few meters
below the surface of Santa Rosa Island off the coast of Santa Barbara
provide strong evidence of a cosmic impact event in North America
approximately 12,900 years ago, according to a new study by scientists.
Their hypothesis holds that fragments of a comet struck across North
America at that time. 

The research, published this week in the Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences (PNAS), was led by James Kennett, professor
emeritus at UC Santa Barbara, and Douglas J. Kennett, first author, of
the University of Oregon. The two are a father-son team. They were
joined by 15 other researchers. 

"The pygmy mammoth, the tiny island version of the North American
mammoth, died off at this time," said James Kennett. "Since it
coincides with this event, we suggest it is related." He explained
that this site, with its layer containing hexagonal diamonds, is also
associated with other types of diamonds and with dramatic
environmental changes and wildfires. They are part of a sedimentary
layer known as the Younger Dryas Boundary. 

"There was a major event 12,900 years ago," said James Kennett. "It is
hard to explain this assemblage of materials without a cosmic impact
event and associated extensive wildfires. This hypothesis fits with
the abrupt climatic cooling as recorded in ocean-drilled sediments
beneath the Santa Barbara Channel. The cooling resulted when dust from
the high-pressure, high-temperature, multiple impacts was lofted into
the atmosphere, causing a dramatic drop in solar radiation." 

The tiny diamonds were buried below four meters of sediment and they
correspond with the disappearance of the Clovis culture -- the first
well-established and distributed North American peoples. An estimated
35 types of mammals and 19 types of birds also became extinct in North
America about this time. 

"The type of diamond we have found -- lonsdaleite -- is a
shock-synthesized mineral defined by its hexagonal crystalline
structure," said Douglas Kennett, associate professor of anthropology
at the University of Oregon. "It forms under very high temperatures
and pressures consistent with a cosmic impact. These diamonds have
only been found thus far in meteorites and impact craters on earth,
and appear to be the strongest indicator yet of a significant cosmic
impact [during Clovis]." 

The diamonds were found in association with soot, which forms in
extremely hot fires, and they suggest associated regional wildfires,
based on nearby environmental records. Such soot and diamonds are rare
in the geological record. They were found in sediment dating to
massive asteroid impacts 65 million years ago in a layer widely known
as the K-T Boundary, known to be associated with the extinction of
dinosaurs and many other types of organisms. 

James Kennett, former director of the Marine Science Institute at UCSB,
is considered by some of his peers to be the "father" of marine
geology and paleoceanography. The native of New Zealand notes that the
sedimentary layers beneath the Santa Barbara Channel provide a unique
window on the history of the world's climate and ocean changes. The
area is one of the best locations in the world for this type of
geological research. 

Douglas Kennett received his bachelor's, master's, and Ph.D in
anthropology at UCSB. 

Co-authors on the PNAS paper are Jon M. Erlandson and Brendan J.
Culleton, of the University of Oregon; Allen West of GeoScience
Consulting in Arizona; G. James West of UC Davis; Ted E. Bunch and
James H. Wittke, of Northern Arizona University; Shane S. Que Hee of
UCLA; John R. Johnson of the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History;
Chris Mercer of UCSB and National Institute of Materials Science in
Japan; Feng Shen of the FEI Company; Thomas W. Stafford of Stafford
Research Inc. of Colorado; Wendy S. Wolbach and Adrienne Stich, of
DePaul University in Chicago; and James C. Weaver of UC Riverside. 

The National Science Foundation provided primary funding for this
research. 

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