Swift Launch is Successful

Saturday, 20 November—Before dawn on its last day on Earth, the Swift space observatory is released from its cage at Launch Complex 17 on the Cape Canaveral Air Force Base. As the scaffolding surrounding it slowly rolls away, the satellite with the name of a nimble bird makes its debut in the spotlights, perched 125 feet above the ground on top of a rocket that soon will blast it into space.

A few hours later, I am standing with a flock of reporters and photographers that has gathered on a hill within sight of Swift—the closest viewing point—waiting to witness and chronicle its last moments on Earth. Some of the scientists and engineers who created Swift wait, as well, on the surf line at their Cocoa Beach hotels and on observation bleachers at the Kennedy Space Center. Among them is Penn State's David Burrows, who leads the team that designed, built, and will operate one of Swift's three telescopes, an X-ray telescope nicknamed XRT.

Penn State scientists David Burrows and John Nousek reacting to the launch they have just viewed, making the "thumbs up" sign with the smoke trail from Swift's launch still visible in the sky behind them.
Photo: Barbara K. Kennedy, Penn State

“You can't ask for much more excitement than launch day—except for the excitement of making new discoveries about our universe and the most powerful explosions that have happened here since its birth,” Burrows says. He and the other Swift scientists expect to be making such discoveries with Swift every other day or so for the next two to eight years.

“I have been waiting for this day for six years, since NASA Goddard invited Penn State to be the major university partner on the international team that was preparing the proposal to build Swift,” Burrows says. Penn State played a leading role in building two of Swift's three telescopes, and Penn State will play a leading role in Swift's operation by controlling the observatory from the Mission Operations Center. But right now all the action is at the launch complex where, after months of delays caused by technical difficulties and a series of what NASA calls “weather violations,” which included three massive hurricanes, Swift's launch countdown has sped surprisingly smoothly to the moment of 3, 2, 1, liftoff!

On the reporters' hill, our bodies pulse and our ears pound as we are hit with blast waves from the percussive pillow of fire that is pushing Swift straight up into the air. At first, Swift seems to hover before our eyes, but as we watch in awe it thrusts and thunders away, leaving behind a squiggly white signature on the blazing blue sky.

	The author, Barbara Kennedy, at the reporter's viewing site, which is the closest viewing point for the launch. You can see Swift on the launch pad in the background.

I am standing between Alan Wells, the lead scientist for Swift's partner institutions in the United Kingdom, and Guido Chincarini, the lead scientist for Swift's partners in Italy. “This is absolutely wonderful,” Chincarini says, “and the most wonderful thing is that we are here to see it!”

I pull myself away from the exuberant crowd on the reporters' hill and hop into my car to rendezvous with Burrows, who is racing—no faster than the legal speed limit, of course—from his Cocoa Beach hotel to Swift's launch-control room on the Cape Canaveral Air Force Base. Hidden inside a corrugated-metal hanger, the control room with its rows of computer consoles and large wall-mounted monitors looks surprisingly like the ones for NASA's manned Apollo missions, which I grew up watching on television. We contribute to the explosion of cheers in the control room as we arrive just in time to see Swift separate from its launch rocket. “Take a good look,” says Burrows as the satellite slowly fades away into the blackness of space, “because this is the last time anyone will see Swift ever again.”

The milestone of separation is especially meaningful to Burrows, who less than a decade earlier was the principal investigator for the X-ray telescope on an observatory that was lost at just this point during its launch, when the rocket failed to separate from the satellite.

More cheers erupt from the control room minutes later, when the data projected on the wall show that Swift has unfolded the solar panels that will provide its power—the maneuver that engineers had ranked as the one most likely to fail. Only moments later—perhaps the most emotional moment for the Penn Staters in the room—Burrows points exuberantly to data on the wall that show Swift is communicating with the Mission Operations Center at Penn State for the first time.

Members of the missions operations team at Penn State University Park take a short break before assuming control of the Swift satellite. Thomas S. Taylor, seated second from left, is the program manager for the Swift Mission Operation Center.
Photo: Annemarie Mountz, Penn State

With the most important launch milestones successfully achieved, the Swift team members from Penn State hurriedly begin the process of shutting down their computers and packing up their equipment for shipment back to University Park. There, they are prepared to face the “weather violations” typical of Central Pennsylvania in exchange for the extraordinary opportunity to be part of the team that will make new discoveries about the universe throughout Swift's years in orbit.