[Launch Alert] Launch Schedule

[Launch Alert]

                             LAUNCH ALERT
 				  
                              Brian Webb
                     Ventura County, California
                  launch-alert-editor at earthlink.net
                        www.spacearchive.info
		       
                                   2012 July 15 (Sunday) 13:26 PDT
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                   VANDENBERG AFB LAUNCH SCHEDULE
                         As of 2012 July 15

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

AUG 2           To be announced          Atlas V             SLC-3E
Vehicle will launch the classified NROL-36 payload for the U.S.
National Reconnaissance Office. The vehicle will also carry the
following secondary payloads: CINEMA (Cubesat for Ion, Neutral,
Electron, Magnetic fields), University of California Berkeley; CSSWE
(Colorado Student Space Weather Experiment), University of Colorado at
Boulder; CP5, California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo;
CXBN (Cosmic X-ray Background Nanosat) Morehead State University; SMDC
1.1 and 1.2, US Army Space and Missile Defense Command; Aeneas,
University of Southern California; RE, Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory; and three AeroCube spacecraft, the Aerospace Corporation.
 
NOV 14          To be announced          Minuteman III       ---
Test launch. The Defense Department may release some details about the
launch a few days in advance.  

JAN 22          Dawn                     Pegasus XL          N/A
Vehicle will be air-dropped from an L-1011 jumbo jet flying offshore.
The aircraft will be staged from Vandenberg AFB. Launch occurs shortly
before sunrise and may create a weak Twilight Effect as exhaust at
high altitude is illuminated by the Sun  

2012            To be announced          Falcon 9            SLC-4E
Vehicle will launch a payload for MDA Corp. (Canada)  

2012            To be announced          Falcon Heavy        SLC-4E
Falcon Heavy demonstration flight  

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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                         X-CLASS SOLAR FLARE
                            by Brian Webb

Sunspot AR1520 erupted on July 12, producing a powerful x-class solar
flare and sending a coronal mass ejection directly toward Earth. Just
hours after the eruption, a stream of protons arrived at Earth,
causing minor disruption to the Global Positioning System and high-
latitude radio blackouts.

The arrival of the CME on July 14 at 11:00 PDT markedly degraded HF
(shortwave) radio propagation. At press time, HF radio conditions are
seriously degraded.

Information from NASA, www.spaceweather.com, and the Editor's
observations.

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                             ON THE WEB

An interesting article about the delay of a Minuteman III test launch
from Vandenberg AFB was posted last month at:

  http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jun/27
  /inside-the-ring-political-delay-for-icbm-test/

The National Reconnaissance Office recently declassified information
about Project QUILL, a synthetic aperture radar imaging satellite.
QUILL was launched from Vandenberg AFB on 1964 December 21 aboard a
TAT/Agena D booster.

To see the declassified Project QUILL documents, go to:

  http://www.nro.gov/foia/declass/QUILL.html

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