Wing supports launch of weather satellite, ship landing of rocket scrubbed

  • Published
  • By 920th Rescue Wing Public Affairs
PATRICK AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  Rescue wing reservists paved the way for the safe and successful launch of NOAA's Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite onboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 6:03pm February 11 from nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS). 

However, SpaceX decided to scrub an attempt to land the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean due to extreme weather, including, "waves reaching up to three stories in height crashing over the decks," according to a SpaceX press release.

The DSCOVR satellite was designed to more accurately monitor solar wind -- a stream of gas emitting into space from the sun's outer atmosphere at roughly 1 million mph that can cause storms in the Earth's atmosphere resulting in potential disruptions to major public infrastructure systems such as GPS, power grids and telecommunications. 

Prior to every launch from Kennedy Space Center or CCAFS, members of the 920th Rescue Wing clear the Eastern Range -- a 12-mile wide by 80-mile long slice of Atlantic Ocean delineating the launch trajectory of each rocket -- of human traffic to prevent death or injury in the event of a launch mishap where a rocket or debris lands in the ocean.

Air Force rescue forces have been partnered with NASA since the advent of the manned spaceflight program, providing medical contingency prevention and response for all launches from the Gemini program of the 1950s though the last flight of the space shuttle in 2011.

The wing's primary mission is combat search and rescue, the recovery of military personnel from denied or hostile territories during wartime. 

Most notably, the 920th Rescue Wing were the unit responsible for rescuing former Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell and recovering the remains of his fallen SEAL team members after a mission in Afghanistan went wrong. Luttrell documented his ordeal in the book, "Lone Survivor," which was later made into an Academy-Award-nominated Hollywood motion picture of the same name.