SMAP Countdown Coverage Begins
Launch and mission managers are stationed at their consoles and countdown activities are in progress at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, where NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive spacecraft awaits liftoff aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket. Liftoff remains scheduled for 9:20 a.m. EST.
SMAP is a three-year mission to study and map the Earth’s soil moisture, which regulates plant growth and has impacts on weather, emergency management and more. Also flying today is an auxiliary payload called Educational Launch of Nanosatellite X, or ELaNa X. This payload contains 4-inch-cube-shaped satellites, or CubeSats, that will be deployed from the rocket’s second stage after SMAP is released.
The blog comes to you from Hangar AE at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, so times are given in Eastern.
