February 2002
Welcome two new staff members
Posted Thursday, February 21, 2002
SimNASA Press Release Thursday, February 21, 2002:-
SimNASA would like to welcome two new staff members to its ranks Tim Luton and Gareth Egan.
Tim Luton is SimNASA’s new director of unmanned space flight and Gareth Egan the new public affairs officer, both men are seasoned SimNASA pilots with Tim holding the rank of Experimental Test Pilot with 441.8 flight hours being awarded the space/missile badge, distinguished service (2) medal and Exceptional Engineering achievement award whilst Gareth Egan who holds the rank of Major is undertaking SimNASA’s Astronaut Program Training and has flown 159.88 hours with 43.68 astronaut hours.
Gareth Egan
Public Affairs Officer
SimNASA
Glenn 40 years ago, Lang today
Posted Wednesday, February 20, 2002
Forty years ago today, John Glenn was rocketed into space on top of an Atlas rocket to become the first American to orbit the Earth. With over 14,600 revolutions of Earth since that eventful date in 1962, Colonel Brian Lang prepares to end SimNASA's historical recreation of the Mercury Project this Saturday.
Lang has been a member of SimNASA since October 2000, and has accumulated over 467 flight hours with SimNASA, and over 250 hours of astronaut training hours. As the last SimNASA astronaut to pilot the mercury capsule, Lang will build upon the experience gathered from two sub orbital and one orbital mission the precedes his flight this weekend.
In May of 2001, SimNASA recreated Alan Shepard’s historical sub orbital flight with Lt. Gen Ronald Barish fifteen-minute flight. This was followed a month later with then Colonel Brad Hodges repeating Barish’s flight as well as doing an orbital flight in July. Hodges was the first virtual astronaut to orbit the Earth in a Flight Simulator environment and Barish has since left SimNASA.
Designated Mercury Atlas 7 (MA-7), Colonel Lang is scheduled to begin his mission this Saturday, February 23 at 1300 hrs UT (9:00AM ET). MA-7 is scheduled to orbit the Earth at least seven times with an expected recovery in the Pacific Ocean near the Hawaiian Islands. The Virtual United States Navy will conduct recovery operations in addition to several UNAF organizations providing support operations during pre-launch, launch, and recovery operations.
The launch of MA-7 will be carried out on the VATSIM network live. Those interested in observing are encouraged to visit the Current Launch Information page at SimNASA for further information.
Press release packets will be made available to the media upon request. Please contact pao@simnasa.org for further information or inquires.
Revised Launch Schedule
Posted Friday, February 15, 2002
SimNASA was given the GREEN light yesterday to continue with launch operations under the VATSIM network. Please check the current launch schedule links for upcomming events.
Launch Status
Posted Monday, February 11, 2002
In accordance with VATSIM directive. All SimNASA launch events have been postponed until further notice. We expect this issue to resolved within the next few days.
PIONEER 3 LAUNCH / MISSION EVENTS
Posted Friday, February 8, 2002
SimNASA Headquarters
Washington, D.C.
Final preparations for the Saturday, February 9, 2002 launch of the very first interplanetary probe, Pioneer 3, are underway at Cape Canaveral, Florida today.
During the past week assembly of the final components for launch vehicle, a Juno II, were competed with matting of the Pioneer spacecraft to the launch vehicle yesterday evening at launch complex 5.
Current weather predications over the Cape Canaveral, Florida area report a 90% change of favorable weather conditions during the launch event.
Several functional tests of the Pioneer craft, to include checkout of the launch vehicle will continue throughout the next day and half before the final countdown checks begin Saturday night.
The Pioneer 3 probe primary mission is to conduct radiation tests of the Moon during a fly-by in preparation of future probe to follow within the coming months.
This is the first launch event of year for SimNASA with a very aggressive schedule over the course of the next six months. The long-term schedule is currently not available to the public, however a 30 to 60 day outlook is released to the public frequently.
The next schedule launch is the final Mercury Project launch schedule for next week. Project Mercury began for SimNASA in May of last year.
Current launch information is available to the public at http://www.simnasa.org/clu.html
Current Launch Information Page
Posted Saturday, February 2, 2002
The current launch information page is now available from the SimNASA site. To visit, select the link from the navigation menu under MISSION CONTROL.
The Current Launch Information page contains the latest information on pending launches being conducted by SimNASA. In addition information on the next launch is available.
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