LADEE Set for Launch on Friday, Pre-Launch Press Conferences Tomorrow

NASA’s LADEE mission is on schedule for launch from Wallops Flight Facility on the coast on Virginia close to midnight on Friday, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT).   NASA will hold two pre-launch press conferences tomorrow.

The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) will launch on a Minotaur V rocket at 11:27 pm EDT on September 6.  The launch window is open for 4 minutes.  Additional launch opportunities are available for the subsequent four days, with launch time moving forward a few minutes.  The weather forecast for Friday night is excellent.  The launch should be visible along the East Coast and as far west as Pittsburgh as shown in the illustration below.

Credit:  Orbital Sciences Corporation

NASA will hold two pre-launch press conferences tomorrow, Thursday, September 5, 2013.   At 3:00 pm Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), a pre-launch news conference with several NASA program officials, including Science Mission Directorate head John Grunsfeld, will originate from the Visitors Center at Wallops and be broadcast on NASA TV.   It will be followed at 4:00 pm EDT by a science and technology briefing also from Wallops by Sarah Noble, LADEE program scientist, Rick Elphic, LADEE project scientist, and Don Cornwell, mission manager for the laser communications demonstration that is included on LADEE.

NASA TV coverage of the launch begins at 9:30 pm EDT on Friday.  It also will be broadcast on the Toshiba screen in New York’s Times Square from 10:30 pm Friday to 1:00 am Saturday, and audio will be available on NASA’s Internet radio station, Third Rock Radio. 

And for all the night owls out there, a post-launch news conference will be held approximately 2 hours after the launch — about 1:30 am Saturday morning.