by: Bruce Thompson

We went a long way to watch this launch, and we weren't leaving until it did. Well, that's what we kept telling each other, while knowing all the time that our own date to go home was set in stone. We made it, but it was a close-run thing, with the MER-B finally launching only three days before we came home

The whole thing began more than a year earlier, when a group of people on an Internet chat line decided to assemble at Cape Canaveral in June, 2003, to watch the launch of the Mars Exploration Rover B (MER-B).

"Mars or Bust" became our slogan.

As time went by, and plans began to firm up, several members of the group had to "bust", leaving only Joy, my NASA Quest online boss, and me as definite starters for the Mars Or Bust Tour 2003. Joy's husband, Howard, was going, just as Cathy was going with me. The four of us decided to share a hotel and rentadent (rental car) in Merritt Island, to the south of Cape Canaveral.

Bonnie Walters, from Camarillo, CA, who, in January 2002, had toured the Goldstone Deep Space Tracking Facility and the JPL with some of us on the chat line, was also going to Florida for the launch. She had enrolled for a Mars Workshop in Cocoa Beach, on June 24, and we arranged to meet while we were there.

We made our plans and bookings, and then, out of a clear blue sky, about three months before our departure date, a member of an Internet space-related chat line that I subscribe to contacted me about the trip. He wanted to know how long we were going to be there, where we would be watching the launch from and did we know anyone in the Cape Canaveral area?

One thing led to another, and our contact, John Isella, who turned out to be a member of the NASA engineering launch team, arranged official invitations for the four of us to the launch and the pre-launch briefing. This was going to be outstanding!

In the meantime, things at the Cape had started to become a little unraveled. NASA had three Delta 2 launches planned fairly close together in May and June. The Space Infra Red Telescope Facility (SIRTF) was to be the first, using a new heavy lift version of the Delta 2, with nine uprated Graphite Epoxy Motors (GEM), or solid-fuelled boosters to us. The new GEMs are 15.2 metres long and 1.17 metres in diameter - 1.8 metres longer and 150mm larger in diameter than the standard GEMs - and generate 56 tons of thrust each. The MER-A launch, using a standard Delta 2, was set for late May, with the MER-B, using another heavy-lift Delta, in late June.

In mid-April, a problem arose with the GEMs on the SIRTF Delta 2, that ultimately postponed the space telescope launch to August 23, and delayed the MER-A launch to early June. It was hoped that the SIRTF GEM problems would not translate to the MER-B launch, which, in the worst-case scenario, would lose its Mars launch window on July 18 and have to wait another twenty-six months. MER-B remained on schedule for 25 June, however, and, with the GEM problems resolved, the decision was made, seeing that SIRTF was now delayed, to use its Delta first stage and GEMS for the MER-B launch.

MER-A launched more than two weeks late on June 10, and the launch team's attention turned to assembling MER-B on pad LC17B. The SIRTF Delta had the space telescope and second stage removed (unstacked), to be replaced by the second and third stages, and the space craft of the MER-B mission.

During the unstacking process, someone yanked on a lanyard on the first stage, which produced a loud crack. That was disconcerting enough, but what really got everyone's attention was the realisation that the crack was the initiator, or detonator, for the Range Safety System (RSS), which is the explosive devices carried by each rocket so that the vehicle can be destroyed if it should suddenly head for Disney World. The problem with the unstacking was that the crew were working with a checklist in which tasks were being performed out of the normal sequence for stacking - assembling - a Delta rocket, and the removal of the RSS initiator had been overlooked. Even though the RSS explosives are not hooked up until two days before launch, people were still appalled at the seriousness of what had happened. Had the initiator been activated with the RSS connected, all nine GEMs would have blown on the pad - at once! Just thinking about it can make you go faint in the head; the combined explosive power in those 12-ton solid boosters is gigantic and, quite apart from the certainty of fatalities over a wide circle around the launch pad, the explosion would have blown pad 17B off the map, and very likely damaged pad 17A beside it.

Without any further heart-stopping moments, the MER-B and its Delta were assembled and prepared for launch on June 25, at 36 minutes after midnight. Cathy and I packed our bags and headed for Florida, where we were meeting Joy and Howard on June 23.

"Packed our bags"...hah!...we'd been packed for a week!

We arrived in Miami late on June 22, and drove north to Merritt Island the next day. That evening, we collected Joy and Howard from Orlando Airport, but we had bad news for them. John had told us, when we arrived in Merritt Island, that problems with the cork insulation around the first stage liquid oxygen tank had delayed the launch to June 28, the day after Joy and Howard - and Bonnie - had to go home. It was a shattering disappointment for everyone, but, for Joy and Howard, it was alleviated by a tour of Cape Canaveral that John arranged at very short notice the day before they went home.

As US nationals, Joy and Howard needed minimal security clearance to make the tour, but the US Air Force, which owns Cape Canaveral - the KSC is owned by NASA - wanted thirty days to check us foreigners out. That meant that we missed out on the tour, but we didn't mind, as we regarded the tour as part compensation for Joy and Howard missing the launch. John gave them a great day out, and they told us all about it that evening.

We took them to Orlando Airport on June 27, at midday, and waved goodbye. Then we drove 61 km back to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Center - Florida is a lot bigger at ground level than it looks on the maps - to pick up our Launch Kits from the NASA Protocol Office.

Even as we had left New Zealand, there was a niggling doubt that the launch invitations had actually been sent to us by NASA. Joy and Howard received theirs about two weeks before departure day, but ours had not arrived by the time we left. We knew - hoped - that we must be in the system, so we had gone to the online Launch RSVP site, before we left, and RSVPed, anyway. On our first day at the Visitor Center, on June 24, we dropped into the Protocol Office and confirmed that we were, indeed, in the system. Whew!

The launch Kits included free passes to the Visitor Center, where the pre-launch briefing was held at 4 pm, that day, in an IMAX theater. The briefing was presented by a selection of prominent people from NASA (Ed Weiler, NASA HQ), the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Peter Theisinger, MER project manager, Rob Manning, MER entry, descent and landing manager), Cornell University (Steven Squyres, principle investigator MER Athena instrument package), Boeing, who build the Delta rockets (Scott Messler), and IMAX/Disney (George Butler). It lasted for 75 minutes and included videos, slides and some clips from an IMAX movie that Disney is making about the MER missions, due for release in 2004.

In the large audience were a lot of the people who had built the MERs, and everyone was pretty excited; there were whoo-whoos, yelps and whoopees coming from behind us all through the briefing, especially when people recognised themselves and each other in the various slides and film clips. Those engineers and scientists had spent years on the MER project, and now it was crunch time! One of their babies was already on its way to Mars, and they were there to see the other one off. The excitement was intense and Cathy and I couldn't help but be caught up in it. By the time we left that theatre, we too had a good dose of the Giggle Factor.

On the way back into town, after the briefing, we detoured to check out the viewing site in the Kennedy Area Recreation Services 1 park (KARS 1), for KSC employees, on the west side of the Banana River. It is about six kilometres from Launch Complex 17, which was clearly visible across the water, and we had no trouble seeing the twin gantries, one of which enclosed the MER and its Delta on pad B. John had earlier suggested that we might prefer a public site closer to the launch pad, such as Jetty Park in Port Canaveral, or a vantage point outside the Port Canaveral Cruise terminals. We had been to look at those sites the day before, but decided to stay with the official viewing site, even though it was further away from LC17.

We left the hotel early on launch evening, determined to get the best vantage point. We had been advised to arrive a couple of hours before launch time, but we compromised and arrived just after 8 pm, for an 11:56 launch. Surprise...we were the first there! The only others at the site were the KSC people in charge of setting things up for us VIPs (VIPs!!!!).

By this time, the launch pad gantry had been rolled back and the Delta, with the one-ton MER-B spacecraft inside its fairing, was bathed in light from floodlights all around the pad. As the evening wore on and the dark darkened, the lights shone out in a huge fan above the pad, illuminating the underside of the clouds.

The crowd grew larger during the evening and we were grateful for the large tent when it started to rain, but the rain lasted less than an hour and people moved outside when it stopped. Flying, biting things were thick, for which the organisers had provided spray-on repellant. They had also provided a very large, heavy wooden box outside the tent, full of freebie water bottles, in ice. It made a solid mount for the camera, and we grabbed a couple of chairs from inside the tent, so we could keep our places beside the box in some sort of comfort.

TV sets and a sound system had been set up so that we could listen to Launch Control and as the hours dragged by, and countdown progressed, we kept an anxious eye on the weather, with total cloud cover, and thunder and lightning out to sea, to the south east.

By now, the spectator crowd had grown to more than two hundred. Many had brought their own cars, the rest arriving in two buses.

The countdown had reached the final four minutes, when Launch Control announced a boat in the danger area down range (you would have thought that someone might have checked that hours before) and the wind in the wrong direction in case of a mishap after launch that could blow a cloud of toxic fumes over populated areas. The weather people said the wind was changing, but not quickly enough, and so the count was stopped at T-minus-4 minutes, and the launch shifted to the next opportunity at 12:37 am. There were two launch opportunities each day, about 45 minutes apart. After that, a scrubbed launch was shifted to the next day.

We waited in tense, restless patience, while 12:30 am crawled around. The chatter from Launch Control was that all weather and downrange conditions were now green, even though there was total cloud cover, and the count would resume at T-4 minutes. Big cheer from the crowd, followed by a groan less than a minute later, when Launch Control announced that there was high altitude wind shear and that the launch was scrubbed until 11:46 that night.

Apparently, when the wind swung around at sea level, to blow the right way in the event of toxic fumes, it hadn't shifted at high altitude. That meant that when the rocket was ascending through winds blowing one way, then abruptly encountered winds blowing the other way, there was too much risk that the guidance system would not be able to cope. Situations like that can lead to off-course rockets and violent explosions.

So everyone packed up and went home. The bad news came later that day, when John called to say that the launch was now off for at least another four days, because of more problems with the cork insulation.

We immediately checked out of the hotel and went on a tour around the north of Florida, but when we returned, three days later, we found that the cork insulation was still causing problems. Then, with that finally fixed, a new problem delayed things even more. The Range Safety System battery had developed a fault, and needed to be replaced. The trouble there was the new batteries are kept in refrigerated storage and need four days to install and bring online. By now, we had less than a week of the holiday left, and a four-day delay would mean we missed the launch. However, a Delta 4, which was being prepared on another pad, used the same battery, so it was taken out and fitted to the MER-B Delta 2.

With that problem fixed, the launch was cleared for Monday night, July 07, at 10:46. John called us with the good news, and sounded pretty confident about it.

After an excellent pre-launch dinner at the Tiki Bar & Grill, on the Port Canaveral waterfront, we returned to the viewing site, with a good feeling about it that wasn't entirely because of the dinner. This time we knew we would see the launch. The gathering crowd was a lot smaller, as many of the original launch guests had long gone home.

In the distance, above the coast, a huge C5 Galaxy transport cruised slowly downwind, then turned to land at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The Delta rocket gleamed in the late afternoon light, white vapour pluming from the liquid oxygen tank vent.

As the evening wore on, the Delta once again stood out in the floodlights. No clouds, this time; instead, an eight-day-old waxing gibbous Moon shone above us, illuminating the vapour trails of high-flying aircraft, diverted inland, away from the launch zone.

The count progressed smoothly through its built-in holds and right to the final four minutes, when the last hold ended. I had set up the camera on a solid picnic table for a time exposure of the launch, and had checked it about thirteen times in the last quarter hour - you get only one shot at this. The table was declared a no-go area - I didn't want anyone jiggling it at the wrong moment - and Cathy and I sat on the grass beside it. I had the shutter release cable in my hand, while Cathy watched the launch pad through the binoculars, and we listened to the last four minutes of the countdown.

The count moved into the last sixty seconds, and the butterflies in the stomach began fluttering madly, while the pulse rate picked up. This is it! We must go, this time! People around us were starting to become excited, with some counting down, then, at T-minus 7 seconds - seven seconds! - Launch Control called "Hold", and the count stopped! Not again! We could not believe it!

Launch Control immediately went through the routines for making the Delta safe and shifting to the next launch opportunity at 11:18, while others worked on the problem. The hold had been called because the fill/drain valve on the liquid oxygen tank had not closed properly at T-15 seconds. During the next 30 minutes, engineers opened and closed the valve repeatedly, to make it work. The count was reset for T-4 minutes, and we, the spectators, waited in a tension that was like a heavy weight pressing down on us. It was all we could do to even look at each other.

Mountains were raised and crumbled into dust while we waited. Geological ages later, Launch Control announced that the valve was working and that the count was ready to resume at T-4 minutes. Huge cheer from the spectators.

The count started again, and crept into the last minute. How slowly time passes! Then it was the last thirty seconds, and suddenly it's the last fifteen seconds and the butterflies are back and the pulse rate is on steroids again and spectators are starting to count down again with the announcer. I'm too busy trying to breathe.

10…9…8…7…no hold this time…6…5…4…3…main engine start, and a glow at the base of the Delta as the main engine ignites and builds up to full thrust and in the nick of time I remember to jam my thumb down on the shutter release cable∑1∑and the whole sky suddenly lights up as the first six boosters ignite. Liftoff! The spectators scream and cheer as the Delta leaps from the pad with a Sun-bright flare at its tail. Oh my, look how fast it climbs! Look at that thing go! Then the sound arrives, and we hear the main engine starting, and then we hear the boosters. God almighty! Then we hear the boosters! Across nearly six kilometres, the sound rolls over us in a thunderous crackling roar. We feel it! What a fabulous, exhilarating moment! We are going to remember this for the rest of our lives.

The Delta passes through the sound barrier in less than thirty seconds, and the roar fades quickly as the rocket, flying almost directly away from us, appears to reach the high point in its climb-out and arcs over to fly downrange. Eighty seconds after liftoff, the first six boosters burn out and fall off. As they do, the remaining three light up and the rocket flies on, still climbing as it goes. Even with the unaided eye, I can see the glowing nozzles of the jettisoned boosters flicking in and out as they tumble towards the sea. From nearly twenty-eight kilometres, they appear to me as tiny red sparks, but Cathy, with the binoculars, can clearly see them in the moonlight, falling end over end, smoke streaming from their nozzles.

There is only one solid cloud bank in the whole sky, and, of course, it is downrange! One hundred and ten seconds after liftoff - the quickest minute and a half of my entire life - the Delta disappears behind the cloud, with the three boosters still firing. I release the shutter cable and we step a few paces to a TV under an awning, and watch the transmission from the on-board camera. The boosters burn out and fall off two and a half minutes after liftoff, and the Delta flies onward and upward. Applause from the spectators at Main Engine Cut Off (MECO), as the spent first stage slides free. The second stage fires and then the onboard camera transmission drops out and the picture switches to the telemetry room at Launch Control.

The first Second Stage Cut Off (SECO) occurs exactly on time at eight minutes and forty-seven seconds after liftoff, with the vehicle in orbit. We stay for a while, watching the TV, and see John appear on the screen. In a white shirt and tie, we have to look twice to make sure it really is him. He writes a note on a chart recorder and glances at the camera. We wave, but he doesn't see us. Then we leave, because the second firing of the second stage is to take place at 70 minutes after liftoff, over the Pacific, but in Florida it is getting on to midnight, and our motel in Kissimmee is 110 kilometres away. We think of Joy, Howard and Bonnie, who came so far to watch this and had to go home, empty-handed. Above the empty launch pad, a towering column of smoke drifts down the wind. Chattering happily, the spectators disperse to their cars and the NASA staff begin to pack up. The Greatest Show on Earth is over for another day.

Cathy and I had a superb three weeks, a lot of it due to John Isella, who went out of his way for four strangers, and who was always so apologetic when he had to tell us of yet another launch delay. Yet, because John constantly kept us up to date, we never got our tails down about the possibility of missing the launch; we were always confident that we would see it. He also introduced us to some excellent eating places; the Tiki Bar & Grill was our favourite - we went there four times.

We did and saw everything we had planned on doing and seeing in Florida, and we watched a space craft go to Mars. To Mars !