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Preparing to launch with support from the 920th

By Vertical Mag | May 27, 2016

Estimated reading time 18 minutes, 34 seconds.

Two Pave Hawk crews with the 920th Rescue Wing patrol Cape Canaveral, Florida, as a ULA Atlas-V rocket lofts the USAF GPS 2F-11 satellite to orbit on Oct. 31, 2015. 920th Pave Hawk crews are responsible for providing range safety, security, and surveillance for every space launch from Florida. No rocket, or astronaut, flies anywhere without their support.
Two Pave Hawk crews with the 920th Rescue Wing patrol Cape Canaveral, Florida, as a ULA Atlas-V rocket lofts the USAF GPS 2F-11 satellite to orbit on Oct. 31, 2015. 920th Pave Hawk crews are responsible for providing range safety, security, and surveillance for every space launch from Florida. No rocket, or astronaut, flies anywhere without their support.

“These things we do, that others may live.”

If you have ever watched a rocket or space shuttle launch in person from Kennedy Space Center or Cape Canaveral, Florida, you probably noticed one or two United States Air Force helicopters patrolling before and after liftoff (or, as the case may be, the scrub). Based out of Patrick Air Force Base, their role patrolling the skies of Florida’s “Space Coast” and the Eastern Range is critical to successful launches of Department of Defense, NASA, and commercial payloads to space, providing safety and security surveillance for every mission.

The 920th Rescue Wing is, as an Air Force Reserve Command combat-search-and-rescue unit, responsible for a variety of demanding missions and ready to deploy at a moment’s notice to perform some of the most highly specialized operations in the Air Force. Their elite team of pararescuemen, or “PJs,” are among the most highly trained emergency trauma specialists in the U.S. military. Elite graduates of the so-called “Superman School,” they are capable of performing life-saving missions anywhere in the world, at any time.

When a covert four-man Navy SEAL team was ambushed and surrounded in a Taliban counter attack in the Hindu Kush Mountains of Afghanistan in the summer of 2005, the 920th was who Special Ops Command called to perform the rescue.

920th Rescue Wing crews carry out their missions with the Sikorsky HH-60G Pave Hawk, an aging but still capable platform based on the H-60 Black Hawk. Tech. Sgt. Anna-Marie Wyant Photo
920th Rescue Wing crews carry out their missions with the Sikorsky HH-60G Pave Hawk, an aging but still capable platform based on the H-60 Black Hawk. Tech. Sgt. Anna-Marie Wyant Photo

The 920th also provides search-and-rescue support for civilians at sea who are lost or in distress, as well as providing worldwide humanitarian and relief operations supporting rescue efforts in the aftermath of disasters such as earthquakes, floods, and hurricanes.

With such expertise, it’s no surprise that the 920th has always been the primary rescue force serving as NASA’s “guardians of the astronauts.” Their relationship with the U.S. Space Program began in 1961, and they have been providing contingency response for a variety of emergencies that could potentially arise during every crewed or uncrewed space launch (or shuttle landing) ever since.

America’s human spaceflight program is currently in transition since the retirement of NASA’s space shuttle fleet in 2011. SpaceX and Boeing both hold multi-billion dollar Commercial Crew Program contracts to fly astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS) for NASA, but their spacecraft, the Crew Dragon and CST-100 Starliner, will not be ready to fly those missions until 2017.

In the meantime, NASA is entirely dependent on Russia to fly American astronauts to and from the $100 billion orbiting science outpost.

Pararescuemen with the 920th prepare to conduct a search-and-rescue demonstration off Cocoa Beach, Florida.
Pararescuemen with the 920th prepare to conduct a search-and-rescue demonstration off Cocoa Beach, Florida.
Besides the ISS, NASA is also leading the nation on a journey to Mars, and currently developing what will evolve into the largest and most powerful rocket in history, the Space Launch System (SLS), to make crewed missions beyond the moon a reality beginning in the early 2020s.But the first SLS launch won’t happen until at least late 2018, and the first crewed launch with NASA’s Orion spacecraft won’t take place until any time between 2021 and 2023.

So the PJs themselves will not be providing astronaut guardian-angel rescue support for at least another couple years, but astronaut rescue training is already underway again, with NASA, the Air Force, Air Force Reserve, and Air National Guard having recently held one of their first astronaut rescue exercises of the Commercial Crew era off of Florida’s coast in March 2016. The operation required several aircraft and numerous communications links between a network of pilots, controllers and stand-in astronauts spread miles apart from each other, as they would be in the unlikely event that their spacecraft had to make an emergency escape from a failing rocket and splash down in the ocean.

Training at other locations has had a much tighter scope, such as astronauts practicing exiting the capsule inside a Crew Dragon mock-up at SpaceX headquarters in California. At NASA Langley Research Center in Virginia, Boeing dropped a Starliner test article into a giant pool to test their contingency landing systems, followed by a test with NASA engineers and Air Force pararescuers to perfect the work needed to climb aboard the spacecraft and stabilize it so astronauts could be safely rescued.

Two Pave Hawk crews and a Lockheed C-130 from the 920th conduct a refueling demonstration off Cocoa Beach.
Two Pave Hawk crews and a Lockheed C-130 from the 920th conduct a refueling demonstration off Cocoa Beach.
Meanwhile, the 920th’s role supporting uncrewed rocket launches from the Cape is as active and important as ever. Rescue Wing airmen work closely with the 45th Space Wing, NASA, the Naval Ordinance Test Unit, and civilian space companies like SpaceX and United Launch Alliance (ULA) to provide safety and security for every launch.Flight crews carry out launch support missions with a pair of Sikorsky HH-60G Pave Hawks, an aging but still sophisticated helicopter model, described by many as a “Black Hawk on steroids.” They feature an upgraded communications and navigation suite that includes integrated inertial navigation/global positioning/Doppler navigation systems, and satellite communications.

They are also equipped with an automatic flight control system, night vision, and a forward looking infrared system that greatly enhances night low-level operations and allows them to fly in virtually any weather, day or night. With the ability to perform mid-air refueling, flight crews can fly nonstop for up to 14 hours.

Preparing for launch

Most space launches have small “windows” to fly during every 24-hour period, but some launches have windows spanning several hours, while others last for only a second.

Airmen with the 920th on patrol over central Florida.
Airmen with the 920th on patrol over central Florida.
“They usually like us to clear the box about two hours prior to launch. We don’t expect a whole lot of small boats out there, but we still get the commercial traffic that cruises back and forth,” said Colonel Jeffrey “Skinny” Macrander, Commander of the 920th — responsible for the management and supervision of some 1,700 citizen airmen under his command.“The big boats are always up on a maritime frequency, so we have a special radio in the Pave Hawk to call and talk to the boats. We’ll tell them to either speed up, change their course, or slow down so that they are not in the range for the launch window. We’ll call the coordinates into the control office at the Cape and they will plot it, do some math, and let us know what the boaters need to do to stay out of the range.

“A lot of times the small boats are just fishing and not monitoring their radios,” added Macrander. “So sometimes we have to come down there and hover pretty close to get their attention and let them know with hand gestures to get on the radio.”

On a 2012 assignment with the unit, I saw myself just how close they get to those small fishing boats not paying attention to their radios, even hovering within less than 100 feet of a boater who was sound asleep, using rotor noise and flashing bright spotlights on his boat to wake him up. (I can only imagine his thoughts waking up to a military Pave Hawk circling him in the middle of the night.)

A SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket lifts off from Cape Canaveral. No rocket flies anywhere without the 920th patrolling the range to ensure safety and security for every space launch from Florida’s Space Coast.
A SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket lifts off from Cape Canaveral. No rocket flies anywhere without the 920th patrolling the range to ensure safety and security for every space launch from Florida’s Space Coast.
Lieutenant Colonel Rob Haston has been supporting rocket launches on Florida’s Space Coast for 20 years, piloting Pave Hawks and clearing the range for nearly every launch since 1995 — including Space Shuttle launches and landings. He has witnessed four rockets explode, so he understands firsthand the importance of the 920th’s role in securing the Eastern Range for a launch.“I liken supporting rocket launches to fishing. There are a lot of nuances to range clearing that I’ve experienced over the years,” said Haston. “You get to know the type of boats and generally where they are going. A lot of different skills are involved depending on the type of boats you are dealing with. You may be dealing with a 1,000-foot freighter with a non-English speaking captain, or a brand new boat owner in a sailboat.”

Haston’s unique experience supporting launches is, as he puts it, “not the sort of thing you pick up in Air Force regulations,” but rather tricks of the trade, as I saw when I tagged up with Haston and his crew in 2012.

Haston offered me a pair of $10,000 night vision goggles to use on our flight, which amplified available light by up to 5,000 times onto a green phosphorous screen. There was no moon this night, but even 60 miles out over the ocean in the darkest black I have ever seen, the goggles illuminated everything. I could even see the ripple of waves on the ocean’s surface.

As an Air Force Reserve Command combat-search-and-rescue unit, the 920th is responsible for a variety of demanding missions. Tech. Sgt. Anna-Marie Wyant Photo
As an Air Force Reserve Command combat-search-and-rescue unit, the 920th is responsible for a variety of demanding missions. Tech. Sgt. Anna-Marie Wyant Photo

We took to the skies two hours before launch, heading up the coast of Brevard County towards Launch Complex 40, where a SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket and Dragon capsule stood fully fueled. We hovered a short distance from the rocket to shoot photos from our unique point of view before heading out to sea. Our orders were to clear an area about 20 miles wide and 60 miles long around the launch site.

Last year, a Falcon-9 exploded at high altitude following liftoff from the Cape, so the 920th providing a larger box for newer launch vehicles, like the Falcon-9, proved to be a legitimate concern.

The night was fairly quiet, but it was interesting to come within a couple hundred feet of a Carnival cruise ship racing into Port Canaveral before the launch. The Pave Hawk circling overhead must have been a surprising sight for the passengers on board.

Lights go off in the Pave Hawk during night ops. Small fluorescent tubes referenced emergency exits, but these and the cockpit controls and displays — as well as the LCD screens on our cameras and cell phones — were the only lights we had. The pitch-black view 60 miles out over the Atlantic allowed the Milky Way to shine brightly in the sky, and the sound of our rotors with no visual of anything was very strange, even eerie.

Airmen and PJs with the 920th pose for a photo op while patrolling central Florida’s Space Coast.
Airmen and PJs with the 920th pose for a photo op while patrolling central Florida’s Space Coast.
Eventually the lights of America’s launch pads began to shine, and the unmistakable sight of xenon lights on the Falcon-9 came back into view. Even from 30 miles out, on a dark moonless night, NASA’s massive Vehicle Assembly Building stood out like a sore thumb — many of my friends and colleagues were on the roof to cover the historic launch.We arrived at the shoreline north of Kennedy Space Center 20 minutes before launch, at which point we headed south along the beach and over Apollo/Shuttle launch pads 39B and 39A before hovering one final time next to the Falcon-9 for some last-minute photos. We then proceeded to fly over NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), circling it from the back and bringing us within throwing distance of the rooftop and the press site. I could see some of the press corps flashing lights at us, their way of saying hello — we were close enough that I could see the light from the LCD screens on their cameras.

We positioned ourselves just north of the VAB and hovered with a great view of Falcon-9 as I sat at the edge of our Pave Hawk, listening to the launch commentary on our headsets as the bright booster roared away from the Cape, accelerating quickly through the atmosphere before vanishing as it climbed above the Pave Hawk’s rotors and out of view.

Haston “tilted” our helo up so I could get in a few more shots before circling to position us for another view, but by that time the rocket was already gone and on the edge of space en route to the ISS.

The 920th has supported America’s space launch efforts for more than half a century, and looks to continue that mission into the future. U.S. Air Force Photo
The 920th has supported America’s space launch efforts for more than half a century, and looks to continue that mission into the future. U.S. Air Force Photo
With that, our mission was complete, and we headed south back to Patrick. As we approached Port Canaveral, the second stage of the Falcon-9 was already lit, shining as brightly as a comet as it hurtled Dragon towards the ISS with thousands of pounds of supplies for the crew.“Day launches are my preference as you encounter wildlife from the aircraft. You can see various fish, turtles and dolphins, and the occasional whale while flying over the wide open ocean,” said Haston. “But supporting any landmark launch is always a great thing to be a part of.”

Landing at Patrick was the end of my day, or night, depending on how you look at it. But for the 920th it was just the beginning, as they were getting ready to perform a search-and-rescue operation for a ship 1,200 miles off the coast of Florida in the area of Bermuda.

America’s space launch efforts supporting national security, science, exploration, and the furthering of technological advancement and knowledge depends, in part, on the 920th providing a safe and secure launch site for every mission, as well as search-and-rescue peace of mind for astronauts leaving the world, same as they have for more than 50 years.

And likely, for the next 50 years as well.

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