General Dynamics division at Gilbert, AZ launches Satellite (apartment, camp)

[Captain Bill]

If you go to this link for probably the next couple hours you can see the launch replays of the Delta II Rocket carrying the GLAST satellite. They show many different camera angles.

NASA - NASA TV

The satellite is the project of a scientist who worked for 10 years getting it developed, and it's purpose is to study the Gamma Rays. It has a 10 year orbit life.

My son in law is the engineer project manager for the satellite. It took him 4 years to build, in the Gilbert, AZ General Dynamics building. During the last 8 months he had to go to Washington DC with the satellite to finish it because they didn't have space in the Gilbert clean room.

Then he had to deliver it to Cape Canaveral where they prepared it for launch.

The 8 months was tough on our daughter and their kids, but the kids knew what their dad was doing and were able to deal with it. They spoke every day on the phone, and they got to go to DC for a nice vacation with him and see the Smithsonian and other sights there.

They also got to go to the Cape for 10 days to be there for the launch. We spoke with them this morning and they were headed out to the beach to view it from there. My sil told them that the beach was a much better viewing vantage point than the bleachers on the base.

They had gotten to have a tour of the launch control room before hand.

My sil was extremely excited because it was his project and he was the guy who had the final decision as to launch or not launch.

There'a also a large article about the satellite in the current Go Gilbert magazine.

Now we can call him The Space Man.

Obviously, we're all proud of him. We had an invitation to go but unfortunately weren't able to, so we stayed back and baby sat their dog.

[AZ Tracy]

You must all be very proud. What an accomplishment!
I clicked on the link, then put "GLAST" in the search box and was able to view several photos.

My brother happened to be in Florida recently and saw the Discovery Shuttle launch from a distance.

Amazing!

[Captain Bill]

That would have been great to see the shuttle launch.

Luck was with my daughter. The launch was scheduled for the 5th then slid to the 6th, so they planned to go there on the 31st and return on the 10th because their son has to go to camp on the 12th. The launch slid to the 11th so they were not going to see it.

When they got to the airport their flight got canceled and they couldn't get another flight until today. So they were able to get a flight that left in the afternoon after the launch and went back to the apartment.

That was one time when they were happy to have a flight canceled.

I'm hoping that Gilbert will get some good press from the GD project.