The pilot announced a waypoint indicating that the L-1011 was in the launch box almost exactly on schedule at 1:21 p.m. I waited for a final countdown to launch and was startled to see the Pegasus drop suddenly and unannounced (at least to me) from the plane. Pegasus fell for what seemed to be a very long time (actually only five seconds) until finally the main engine lit up. The rocket accelerated rc. Launch control continued to announce key events as the glow of the first stage, still visible on the chase plane video, faded in the distance: stage 1 burnout and the glow went away; stage 1/2 separation followed immediately by stage 2 ignition and a faint glow returned to the video screen. Pegasus was now about 200 km in altitude and moving at a speed of more than 7 km per second. Stage 3 ignition was scheduled for 338 seconds into the launch but was announced at 388 seconds. Did this delay indicate a possible problem? If so, I wondered how serious. Stage 3 burnout was also late at 455 seconds, and launch control then announced that SeaStar was successfully inserted into a 305 km circular parking orbit, somewhat lower than planned, but IN ORBIT! The engineers and I congratulated each other, but then launch control announced (erroneously as it turned out later) that SeaStar's parking orbit was actually highly elliptical. That did not sound good. Was SeaStar in a good orbit or on its way to becoming a Star Wars target? Were the solar panels deployed? Was it responding to commands? We would have to wait until we heard from SeaWiFS Project Manager, Mary Cleave, who was monitoring the mission from OSC's operation center at Dulles Airport outside of Washington D.C.. Bob, one of the NASA engineers, called Mary's pager, and we waited nervously for her to return our call. She called back almost immediately with ambiguous news. The parking orbit was circular but low. The solar panels were deployed, but the tracking station in Antarctica had failed to pick up SeaStar's signal. An hour later, Mary called back to tell us that the Alaska station had picked up the SeaStar telemetry signal. That was the good news. The bad news was that SeaStar was having trouble with attitude control and thus was not oriented properly to the sun. Furthermore, the satellite was losing battery power and was in "safe mode" to conserve power.

This was clearly not the best situation, but Mary did not seem concerned (but then again, I told myself, she had flown twice on the Space Shuttle, so how worried could she ever get over a little rocket launch). Oh, What the hell! I straightened my tie, put on my blazer with the Seawifs lapel pin, walked downstairs and jumped in the pool. The news from Dulles improved throughout the evening, and we went to dinner feeling cautiously optimistic. We returned to our motel to find the swimming pool full of fully-clothed OSC rocket people drinking beer and celebrating their successful launch. And why not? They had done a great job today. And better rocket people in the pool, than the payload in the drink. A ocket people recognized Bob (who as a NASA representative had been tough with OSC on certain technical issues), and the chase was on (Bob somehow escaped). I went up to my room and called the SeaWiFS Project Office at GSFC. They were very upbeat and were preparing to track SeaStar's telemetry signal during its first pass down the East Coast around 2 a.m.. I felt like celebrating, but also worried about all of the other key hurdles to jump before SeaWiFS could start collecting data. Orbit raising was tricky, the sensor may not turn on, the solar panels could fail..... Oh, what the hell! I straightened my tie, put on my blazer with the SeaWiFS lapel pin, walked downstairs and jumped in the pool. This article appeared in the November 1997 issue of the backscatter magazine, published by the Alliance of Marine Remote Sensing.