NASA Opens Media Accreditation For California Solar Mission Launch

WASHINGTON, April 23, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- News media planning to cover the launch of NASA's Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) mission on June 26 at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California should apply for accreditation by June 18.

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Deployment of IRIS from the Orbital Sciences L-1011 carrier aircraft aboard a Pegasus rocket is targeted for 10:27 p.m. EDT at an altitude of 39,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean. That location is approximately 100 miles northwest of Vandenberg off the central coast of California.

News media can cover the prelaunch news conference and mission science briefing, which will be followed by an opportunity to see the L-1011 aircraft with the attached Pegasus rocket carrying IRIS. For launch, news media will be able to see the deployment of the Pegasus rocket from the L-1011 via live video provided by a NASA chase plane. A news conference will be held after the launch.

IRIS is a NASA Small Explorer Mission to observe how solar material moves, gathers energy, and heats up as it travels through a little-understood region in the sun's lower atmosphere. This interface region between the sun's photosphere and corona powers its dynamic million-degree atmosphere and drives the solar wind. The interface region is where most of the sun's ultraviolet emission is generated that impacts the near-Earth space environment and Earth's climate.

To request accreditation, news media should contact 2nd Lt. Kaylee Ausbun, 30th Space Wing Public Affairs Office, Vandenberg Air Force Base at 805-606-3595, or [email protected], or by fax at 805-606-4571. 

Information required is full legal name, date of birth and media affiliation. Foreign media also should include nationality and passport number. Government-issued photo identification will be required to enter Vandenberg.

NASA's Launch Services Program at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida is responsible for IRIS launch management.

For more information about the IRIS mission, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/iris

SOURCE NASA