Roaring off into clear, blue skies, a Delta II rocket successfully launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base on Oct. 8, carrying an advanced Earth imaging satellite into polar orbit.
“There really is nothing quite as exciting as seeing one of these powerful little rockets jump off the pad,” 30th Space Wing commander Col. David Buck said in a press release. “I’m incredibly proud of this wing and its mission partners for the way they conquer the immense technical difficulties of space lift operations and make it look easy.”
The rocket lifted off from the base’s Space Launch Complex-2 at 11:51 a.m., sending DigitalGlobe’s WorldView-2 satellite approximately 458 miles above the planet’s surface.
The WorldView-2 was built by Ball Aerospace and is the world’s first high-resolution eight-band multi-spectral satellite. In addition to capturing digital photos of Earth in the four typical spectral bands, the satellite will collect and record images in red edge, coastal, yellow, and near-infrared bands, resulting in a better feature recognition and a more accurate view of the world’s natural colors, according to the company.
DigitalGlobe is based in Longmont, Colo., and provides satellite images for defense, commercial, and government clients.
United Launch Alliance provided the mission’s launch services, and spokesperson Michael Rein credited Vandenberg personnel with helping to make the mission a success.
“It was a spectacular launch,” Rein said. “It shows the professionalism of the people here at Vandenberg, because it is rocket science, and they can be proud of the way they contribute to the mission and to the country’s economy.
“The people here should take great pride in what they’ve accomplished today,” he added.
The 12-story-tall Delta II, first launched in 1989, takes military, civil, and commercial payloads into low-earth, polar, geosynchronous, and stationary orbits. According to Boeing, the rocket has a 100-percent mission success rate since 1997.
This article appears in Oct 15-22, 2009.