The Titan II launch vehicle is a decommissioned ICBM  ALSO: NASA prepares to launch El Niño-watcher

June 17, 1999
Web posted at: 12:49 p.m. EDT (1649 GMT)

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, California (CNN) -- The launch of NASA's wind-observing QuikScat satellite has been postponed a day so engineers can look into an instrument problem on the Titan II launch vehicle.

The launch over the Pacific Ocean had been set for Friday evening, but engineers on Tuesday discovered noisy data from a telecommunications instrument on the Titan II rocket during a final spacecraft system test

Launch now is set for 7:15 p.m. from Vandenberg Air Force Base, about 140 miles northwest of Los Angeles. Engineers will use the extra day to investigate the cause of the communications problem and replace circuits and other equipment if necessary.

The $93 million mission is designed to collect daily data on the relationship between sea winds and the weather, bouncing microwaves off the ocean surface to measure the speed and direction of vast surface winds as they influence weather patterns and marine currents.

QuikScat, managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and designed and built by Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. of Colorado, is expected to provide key data that will improve daily and long-term weather forecasts.

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