Flawless Launch Seen By Much Of Eastern US

Its on its way... NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) observatory launched aboard a Minotaur V rocket from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, Friday, Sept. 6, 2013, in Virginia.

NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) is a robotic mission that will orbit the moon to gather detailed information about the lunar atmosphere, conditions near the surface and environmental influences on lunar dust. A thorough understanding of these characteristics will address long-standing unknowns, and help scientists understand other planetary bodies as well.

The LADEE spacecraft's modular common spacecraft bus, or body, is an innovative way of transitioning away from custom designs and toward multi-use designs and assembly-line production, which could drastically reduce the cost of spacecraft development, just as the Ford Model T did for automobiles. NASA's Ames Research Center designed, developed, built and tested the spacecraft.

Despite the perfect launch, some issues have cropped up as the vehicle makes its way to Luna... Late Friday night, during technical checkouts the LADEE spacecraft commanded itself to shut down the reaction wheels used to position and stabilize the spacecraft. According to the LADEE mission operations team at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., this was determined to be the result of fault protection limits put in place prior to launch to safeguard the reaction wheels. The limits that caused the powering off of the wheels soon after activation were disabled, and reaction wheel fault protection has been selectively re-enabled.

As a result, NASA has confirmed that the reaction wheels of its Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) were successfully brought back on-line and the spacecraft has acquired its safe-mode attitude profile.

“Our engineers will determine the appropriate means of managing the reaction wheel fault protection program. Answers will be developed over time and will not hold up checkout activities,” said Butler Hine, LADEE project manager.

“The initial checkout flight procedure is progressing,” said S. Pete Worden, Ames center director. “The reaction wheel issue noted soon after launched was resolved a few hours later. The LADEE spacecraft is healthy and communicating with mission operators.”

LADEE is on its way to arrive at the moon in 30 days, then enter lunar orbit. LADEE is managed by NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.

FMI: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ladee/main/index.html