T+plus 50 minutes. Restart of second stage engine is expected at about T+plus 68 minutes. The stage will fire for approximately 65 seconds to circularize the orbit. Deployment of the payload to complete the launch is expected around T+plus 75 minutes.
So far so good
Edit : Update - GLAST has separated from the second stage, looks like a good insertion
RedOktober wrote:I never understand these wobbly lines on the maps. Spaceships fly in straight lines.
It's because of science.
1. Spaceships don't fly in straight lines, unless they are in free drift in field-free space, which never happens.
2. The map is a distortion of reality. The Earth isn't really that small. Or that flat. Or that rectangular.
So the wavy lines represent the fact that spaceships in orbit go round and round (mainly because of gravity, with a few other disturbances thrown in) and that to draw a more-or-less-spherical planet's surface on a rectangular map you have to bend the image.
Finally some good news on the sampling front from the Phoenix lander, the TEGA oven now has a sample ready for cooking ! Apparently a seventh attempt to shake the sample through the screen filter worked...
None of the dislodging attempts since the soil was first delivered on Saturday had been successful, but scientists ran the vibrator for a seventh (and likely final) time on Tuesday night "in the off chance we might get lucky," said TEGA co-investigator William Boynton of the University of Arizona.
"The dirt finally did start to flow and we actually got a full oven, so that problem is now behind us," Boynton added. "We're hopeful that some time in the next few days we'll close the oven and begin the analysis process."
When Boynton announced the unexpected result to the Phoenix team, "the group just went up into cheers," he said as he played the song "(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty."
In other news, a sample has been delivered to the microscope. Results from the TEGA mass spectrometer and the microscope should be coming in the next few days
