[Launch Alert] Minuteman III Launch

Wed Jun 24 22:15:43 EDT 2009

                             LAUNCH ALERT

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

                                2009 June 24 (Wednesday) 19:06 PDT
----------------------------------------------------------------------

               VANDENBERG SCHEDULES MINUTEMAN III LAUNCH
                     Vandenberg AFB News Release
                            2009 June 24

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. - An unarmed Minuteman III
intercontinental ballistic missile configured with a joint test
assembly is scheduled to launch from North Vandenberg Monday between
3:01 a.m. to 9:01 a.m.

The launch is an operational test to determine the weapon system's
reliability and accuracy. 

The missile's three unarmed re-entry vehicles are expected to travel
approximately 4,190 miles, hitting a pre-determined target near the
Kwajalein Atoll.  

The 576th Flight Test Squadron, which will direct the missile launch,
installed tracking, telemetry and command destruct systems on the
missile to collect data and meet safety requirements. Maintenance and
operations task force personnel from the 91at Missile Wing, Minot AFB,
ND are conducting operational tasks leading up to launch.  

Col. David J. Buck, the 30th Space Wing commander, is the launch
decision authority for this mission. Lt. Col. Lesa K. Toler, the 576th
FLTS commander, is the mission director. A crew visiting from Minot
AFB will launch the missile under the direction of the 576th FLTS.  

This launch, the first of three in 2009, comes at a time of change
within the missile world, as the Air Force moves closer to combining
its nuclear missile and bomber assets into a fledgling Global Strike
Command.

"The move to Global Strike Command means that we can re-build the way
we do business from scratch," said Colonel Toler. "This is a great
opportunity for us to write our future. We are already the best at
what we do, but now we are currently looking at our processes to see
how we can do our job faster and more efficiently."

The entire ICBM community, including the Department of Defense and the
Department of Energy, will use the data collected from this mission
for continuing force development evaluation.  

----------------------------------------------------------------------

            JPL WIND WATCHER BLOWS INTO ITS SECOND DECADE
                          NASA News Feature
                           2009 June 18

NASA's Quick Scatterometer, or QuikScat, mission was conceived,
developed and launched less than two years after the unexpected loss
of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Advanced Earth Observing
Satellite-1 spacecraft, which carried the NASA Scatterometer in June
1997. Just two years later, on June 19, 1999, the QuikScat spacecraft
carrying JPL's SeaWinds instrument was launched from Vandenberg Air
Force Base, Calif. 

Since its launch a decade ago, QuikScat has advanced Earth science
research and helped improve environmental predictions using
measurements of global radar backscatter from Earth's ocean, land and
ice surfaces. QuikScat data help scientists better understand and
predict the processes that drive our climate, such as ocean
circulation and the global water cycle. 

QuikScat data have revolutionized operational weather and storm
forecasting. According to Paul Chang, ocean winds science team lead at
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National
Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service/Center for
Satellite Applications and Research, Camp Springs, Md., "QuikScat
observations are now used around the world to support operational
forecasting and warning of phenomena ranging from tropical and
extratropical cyclones, fronts, localized coastal wind events such as
gap winds and sea conditions driven by winds, to sea and lake ice
extent and motion. The 10 years of observations from the QuikScat
mission have provided critical information for the monitoring,
modeling, forecasting and research of the atmosphere, oceans and
climate." 

In addition to its numerous weather forecasting and climate research
applications, QuikScat data also help monitor changes in Arctic sea
ice and icebergs, as well as snow and soil moisture changes on land.
QuikScat's reliability, quality, resolution, coverage and longevity
have made it the only global ocean wind speed and direction data to
date that are appropriate for climate studies. 

QuikScat accurately measures the speed and direction of winds at the
ocean surface over 90 percent of Earth's surface twice a day,
providing data in areas not sampled by buoys and other wind platforms.
The scatterometer works by measuring the strength of radar signals
that are bounced back from the ocean surface. As wind speeds increase,
they disturb the ocean surface, generating more small waves. These
small waves reflect the radar energy toward the radar, resulting in a
stronger reflection. This is similar to the way that wind blowing at
the beach on a sunny day causes the ocean surface to sparkle. 

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., developed QuikScat
and manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate,
Washington. QuikScat's mission team includes personnel from JPL;
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.; Ball Aerospace
and Technologies Corp., of Boulder, Colo.; the University of
Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics in Boulder;
and numerous principal investigators funded by NASA's Ocean Vector
Winds science team. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------