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History of the Delta Launch Vehicle



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Archive for April, 2002


30-Apr-02 | Coming Soon!

To Reach the High Frontier: A History of U.S. Launch Vehicles, edited by NASA Chief Historian Roger D. Launius and Dennis R. Jenkins, will be published by the University Press of Kentucky in August 2002. It includes chapters on all the major families of American launch vehicles, from the Navaho project of the 1950s, to the expendable Atlas, Titan, and Delta rockets, to the Space Shuttle and discussions of other reusable vehicle concepts. “Delta: The Ultimate Thor” is an extensive overview of Delta history and development written by yours truly (but in case you think this is a totally shameless plug, I won’t be getting any royalties from the book). To order, click here.


25-Apr-02 | CONTOUR arrives at KSC

CONTOUR arrived today at Kennedy Space Center, where it was placed into SAEF-2 for pre-launch processing. It had been shipped via ground in an air-ride, climate-controlled shipping container from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., which designed and built the spacecraft. CONTOUR (Comet Nucleus Tour) is expected to launch in July aboard a Delta Med-Lite rocket and will fly near at least two comets during its four-year mission.


18-Apr-02 | Stardust aphelion

Today is aphelion day for Stardust (Delta 266). At 2.72 AU from the Sun, it has set a record for the greatest distance ever reached by a solar-powered spacecraft. Despite its low power input, the craft is in good shape and remains on course to intercept comet Wild-2 in 2004.


17-Apr-02 | SIRTF in testing

The Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF) is now in testing at Lockheed Martin Space System’s Sunnyvale, California, campus following integration of its cryogenic telescope assembly. SIRTF is the last of NASA’s Great Observatories, a group that includes the Hubble Space Telescope, the late Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. SIRTF will launch into a heliocentric orbit aboard an upgraded Delta II rocket in early 2003. (Spaceflight Now, 15-Apr-02)


     

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