[Launch Alert] Vandenberg AFB Launch Schedule

[Launch Alert]

                             LAUNCH ALERT
 				  
                              Brian Webb
                     Ventura County, California
                  launch-alert-editor at earthlink.net
                        www.spacearchive.info
		       
                                 2012 January 2 (Monday) 13:07 PST
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                   VANDENBERG AFB LAUNCH SCHEDULE
                         As of 2012 January 2

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

FEB 25          To be announced          Minuteman III       ---
The vehicle will probably send an unarmed warhead on a ballistic
trajectory to the central Pacific. The Defense Department will
release the launch window and other details a few days in advance  

MAR 29          To be announced          Delta IV            SLC-6
Vehicle will launch the classified NROL-25 payload for the U.S.
National Reconnaissance Office  

AUG             To be announced          Atlas V             SLC-3
Vehicle will launch the classified NROL-36 payload for the U.S.
National Reconnaissance Office  

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.

All launch dates and times are given in Pacific Time using a 24-hour
format similar to military time (midnight = 00:00, 1:00 p.m. = 13:00,
11:00 p.m. = 23:00, etc.). 

The dates and times in this schedule may not agree with those on other
online launch schedules, including the official Vandenberg AFB
schedule because different sources were used, the information was
interpreted differently, and the schedules were updated at different
times.

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         NASA'S TWIN GRAIL SPACECRAFT REUNITE IN LUNAR ORBIT
                          NASA News Release
                             2012 JAN 1

PASADENA, Calif. -- The second of NASA's two Gravity Recovery And 
Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft has successfully completed its 
planned main engine burn and is now in lunar orbit. Working together, 
GRAIL-A and GRAIL-B will study the moon as never before. 

"NASA greets the new year with a new mission of exploration," said 
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "The twin GRAIL spacecraft will 
vastly expand our knowledge of our moon and the evolution of our own 
planet. We begin this year reminding people around the world that 
NASA does big, bold things in order to reach for new heights and 
reveal the unknown." 

GRAIL-B achieved lunar orbit at 2:43 p.m. PST (5:43 p.m. EST) today. 
GRAIL-A successfully completed its burn yesterday at 2 p.m. PST (5 
p.m. EST). The insertion maneuvers placed the spacecraft into a 
near-polar, elliptical orbit with an orbital period of approximately 
11.5 hours. Over the coming weeks, the GRAIL team will execute a 
series of burns with each spacecraft to reduce their orbital period 
to just under two hours. At the start of the science phase in March 
2012, the two GRAILs will be in a near-polar, near-circular orbit 
with an altitude of about 34 miles (55 kilometers). 

During GRAIL's science mission, the two spacecraft will transmit radio 
signals precisely defining the distance between them. As they fly 
over areas of greater and lesser gravity caused by visible features 
such as mountains and craters, and masses hidden beneath the lunar 
surface, the distance between the two spacecraft will change 
slightly. 

Scientists will translate this information into a high-resolution map 
of the moon's gravitational field. The data will allow scientists to 
understand what goes on below the lunar surface. This information 
will increase knowledge of how Earth and its rocky neighbors in the 
inner solar system developed into the diverse worlds we see today. 

Each spacecraft carries a small camera called GRAIL MoonKAM (Moon 
Knowledge Acquired by Middle school students) with the sole purpose 
of education and public outreach. The MoonKAM program is led by Sally 
Ride, America's first woman in space, and her team at Sally Ride 
Science in collaboration with undergraduate students at the 
University of California in San Diego. 

GRAIL MoonKAM will engage middle schools across the country in the 
GRAIL mission and lunar exploration. Thousands of fifth- to 
eighth-grade students will select target areas on the lunar surface 
and send requests to the GRAIL MoonKAM Mission Operations Center in 
San Diego. Photos of the target areas will be sent back by the GRAIL 
satellites for students to study. 

A student contest that began in October 2011 also will choose new 
names for the spacecraft. The new names are scheduled to be announced 
in January 2012. Ride and Maria Zuber, the mission's principal 
investigator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 
Cambridge, chaired the final round of judging. 

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the 
GRAIL mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The 
GRAIL mission is part of the Discovery Program managed at NASA's 
Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Lockheed Martin 
Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft. 

For more information about GRAIL, visit: 

http://www.nasa.gov/grail 

Information about MoonKAM is available online at: 

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/grail/education.cfm 

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