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GEORGE DILLER: This is Atlas launch control at T minus 50 minutes and counting, with a single 10-minute, built-in hold remaining. That means we are exactly one hour from the launch of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on a Lockheed Martin Atlas V rocket from Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral. At this point, liquid oxygen on the Atlas stage 77 percent full, we're at flight level on the Centaur, and preparing for the loading of the liquid hydrogen onto the Centaur very shortly. We're joined now by Tammy Harrington, the mission integration manager for NASA at the Kennedy Space Center who's been busy working the integrated operations on the MRO spacecraft and the Atlas V for quite some time. Tammy, welcome, and about when did Kennedy Space Center actually start preparing for this launch? TAMMY HARRINGTON: Actually, the Launch Services Program began working with the MRO project about four and a half years ago, and it began with the exercise to actually buy the launch vehicle and select launch vehicle that would be appropriate for sending it on its mission to Mars. DILLER: And then, the team that you work with has a lot to do with the interface requirements, do they not, between the Atlas and the spacecraft? What do they need to be compatible to work together? HARRINGTON: Correct. We manage the process by which the launch vehicle and the spacecraft actually come together, and we have to determine what needs to be done on the launch vehicle in order to accommodate the spacecraft and how the spacecraft basically has to be designed in order to fly successfully on the launch vehicle on its mission to Mars. DILLER: So what, what was the main thing in choosing an Atlas V? What are some of the things that led NASA to believe that that was the right vehicle to fly this mission? HARRINGTON: Basically, we put together a list of requirements on the spacecraft side related to the, you know, performance that's required, and due to the mass of the spacecraft and the instruments that it wanted to fly. We also looked at the trajectory that it needed to fly in order to get to Mars. And the Atlas V proved to be a very good match with meeting all those requirements, in addition to the other special accommodations that the spacecraft required in its processing. DILLER: We're going to look at some video now of the Atlas V processing, the Atlas and the Centaur, beginning with their arrival..........Now for the MRO mission, we actually will perform two Centaur burns. The first one will last about nine minutes to inject the Centaur in a parking orbit, where it will coast for about 30 minutes to its, an optimal position prior to the start of the second burn, which lasts for about five. And there you see the final configuration with the first two stages together. DILLER: Well, Tammy, thank you very much. I'm sure you're looking forward to see the fire in the hole, as everyone calls it, and thank you very much for talking with us. HARRINGTON: Thanks, George.