Cape Canaveral, Fla. – Despite the scrubbed launch, the post-launch party went on as scheduled at the Radisson Resort at the Port hotel.
International Launch Services, a joint venture between Lockheed Martin Corp. and Russia’s Khrunichev Space Center and RSC Energia, paid for the reception. Lockheed Martin’s Jefferson County employees built the Atlas V rocket that will send the New Horizons probe into orbit.
An ILS spokeswoman said it’s common for such parties to go on even if the launch was postponed.
“It’s a matter of dollars,” she said. “We have the food already paid for.”
Roughly 2,000 people were invited to the party.
“What are they going to do?” said principal investigator Alan Stern, who attended the reception.
A lifetime opportunity
NASA administrator Michael Griffin and deputy administrator Shana Dale are among those watching the launch. This is Dale’s first launch.
At a press conference prior to Tuesday’s scheduled launch, Griffin said, “It is fantastically interesting … to have a chance, maybe within my lifetime, … to see up close what those objects look like and to begin our reconnaissance of that region of space.”
Postponement’s pretty pricey
How much does it cost to delay a launch for one day? NASA spokesman Dwayne Brown doesn’t really know, but he can estimate.
The agency pays about $110,000 a day for a contingency plan in case of an accident. It includes 125 workers and dozens of air monitors that check for plutonium, which provide its electrical power in space. Another 500 people are working on the launch itself at Kennedy Space Center, he said.
