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The Atlas V531 rocket with NROL-101 payload on the launch pad is seen on Monday before returning to the V integration facility for repair / checkout of additional payload environmental control system.
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Super telephoto view of the upper ECS (Environmental Control System) duct after repairs on November 4, 2020.
Trevor Mahalman for Ars
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Close-up of NROL-101 ferring artwork. The Elvish script “Gods exist.” Translates into
Trevor Mahalman for Aras
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This is the first flight of the Atlas V with a GEM-63 solid solid rocket booster. ULA aims to build a flight experience before the GEM-63X XXL flight on Vulcan as early as next year.
Trevor Mahalman for Aras
The United Launch Alliance returns one of its two main pads at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Wednesday, due to various issues, to try to break the wire of the recently launched scrubs, mostly related to ground systems.
The company’s Atlas V Rocket Space Launch Complex-1 is scheduled to be lifted off at 5:54 pm (22:54 UTC), in which the National Reconnaissance Office will carry a satellite for fees. The mission is named NROL-101, and its final classification is classified. Favorable conditions have a 70 percent chance.
The venerable Atlas V rocket, which has flown 85 missions since its inception in 2002, will test new hardware with this flight. For the first time, the Atlas V Aerojet will use a solid rocket booster built by Northrop Grumman instead of a RocketDin. The cost of this GEM-63 boo booster is lower than the booster used earlier. The United Launch Alliance plans to use an expanded version of this booster, the GEM-63L, on its Vulcan rocket, which could make its maiden flight in a year or more.
Perhaps the biggest question in today’s launch attempt is whether the Atlas V rocket will land. The mission was originally scheduled to begin on Tuesday, but after a rollout on Monday, the company discovered a problem in the environmental control system hose. The damage was caused during heavy winds at the launch site on Monday. After being rotated back to its hangar, where the tube had disappeared, the Atlas V rocket turned back to the pads on Tuesday.
So far, so good – on Wednesday morning the company says that everything is on track for the Atlas V lift lift f the next day.
The United Launch Alliance could do with a successful liftoff. It’s been months of hard work as the company struggles to launch a second mission for a premium-paying customer, National Rick Onna Niscens Office Fees, to get high-dollar satellites into space.
This NROL-44 mission, due to launch on a Delta IV heavy rocket on a nearby pad, has scrubbed half a dozen times since the end of August Gust. Most of these scrubs were due to ground support equipment problems and often came within seconds of planned liftoff time. This raises questions about the aging infrastructure at the Delta launch site in Florida. A new launch date has not yet been set for the mission, whose U.S. The government hoped to enter space in June.
The company’s webcast should start 20 minutes before the lift for today’s launch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aynKNh6cvnI
NROL-101 Mission.
