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kevinforsyth.net
To Reach the High Frontier: A History of U.S. Launch Vehicles
"A valuable contribution to the field of aerospace literature," this book includes an extensive overview of Delta history and development along with chapters on Atlas, Titan, Scout, Space Shuttle, and much more.
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Many other excellent books about spaceflight are recommended here.
08-Dec-03 | Stardust sees its target
“Forty-nine days before its historic rendezvous with a comet, NASA’s Stardust spacecraft successfully photographed its quarry, comet Wild 2, from 25 million kilometers (15.5 million miles) away.” (JPL Press Release, 01-Dec-03)
18-Nov-03 | STEREO selected for flight
NASA has exercised another option on its June 2000 launch contract with Boeing, officially scheduling STEREO, the Solar-Terrestrial Relations Observatory, to launch aboard a three-stage Delta II 7925 on 15 November 2005. Previous flights on this contract were the Mars Exploration Rovers, en route and soon to arrive at Mars; future flights include Aura, Deep Impact, and MESSENGER; two options remain. (NASA Contract Release, 17-Nov-03)
18-Nov-03 | GP-B delayed again, again
Gravity Probe B has been delayed yet again, as pre-launch testing has revealed noise on an output channel of one of the spacecraft’s gyroscopes. A new launch date is pending assessment of the problem. Assembly of the two-stage Delta II rocket is complete, and the vehicle will remain on the pad at SLC-2W. (KSC Press Release, 17-Nov-03)
21-Oct-03 | CONTOUR investigation concludes
The CONTOUR Mishap Investigation Board has released its findings, concluding that “the probable proximate cause for this accident was structural failure of the spacecraft due to plume heating during the embedded solid-rocket motor burn.” (NASA Press Release, 15-Oct-03)
Contact with the spacecraft was lost on 15 August 2002, following a propulsive manoeuvre during which, by design, no telemetry was available. To this observer, it sounds like CONTOUR (launched on Delta 292) was yet another victim of overly enthusiastic application of the “Faster, Better, Cheaper” mantra, resulting in a lack of project oversight and end-to-end systems integration testing of the same sort that doomed Mars Polar Lander.
21-Sep-03 | NOAA-N’ damaged
On 6 September, the NOAA-N Prime spacecraft, under construction for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration at Lockheed Martin’s facility in Sunnyvale, California, dropped from a support fixture. An investigation into the cause of the incident and extent of the damage is underway. NOAA-N Prime, a critical part of the U.S. weather and climate monitoring capability, was tentatively scheduled to launch aboard a Delta Med-Lite in 2008. (NASA Press Release, 09-Sep-03)
12-Sep-03 | GP-B delay
Gravity Probe B has been delayed once again, this time for the same reason that last postponed SIRTF: “delaminations within the layers of material that comprise the solid rocket booster nozzle exit-cone liners.” Three of the ATK Thiokol-built GEM 40 booster motors will be replaced as a precautionary measure. Nevertheless, stacking of the two-stage Delta 7920 at Space Launch Complex 2-West remains slated to begin next Monday, 15 September, with stacking of the second stage now set to precede attachment of the GEM 40 motors. (NASA ELV Status Report, 10-Sep-03)
03-Sep-03 | First SIRTF image released
Though the start of its science mission is still several weeks away, SIRTF has returned its first “aliveness test” image, available here. The image is fuzzy because the optics are not yet properly chilled down. Meanwhile, it appears that the upper stage of Delta 300, which propelled SIRTF into space, has become the first Delta second stage to enter heliocentric orbit — previous solar orbit flights have all used a third stage solid motor. (JSR 508, 2-Sep-03)
25-Aug-03 | Next launches
Three flights remain on the Delta manifest for 2003. Two will be Air Force launches to maintain the Global Positioning System constellation, set to fly from Canaveral in October and December. Out at Vandenberg AFB, preparations continue on NASA’s Gravity Probe B, scheduled for launch in November.
25-Aug-03 | Delta flight 300 – SIRTF
A new era for astronomy has begun!
In the early morning hours of 25 August, NASA’s Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF) was successfully placed into orbit by a two-stage Delta 7920H. Delta flight 300 — the 109th for Delta II and the second in a row for the new Delta II-Heavy configuration — leapt off Pad 17B at an official range time of 05:35:39.231 UTC. The 50-minute ride into space was quite uneventful, with the exception of telemetry issues that led to a nail-biting conclusion. Data reception dropped out prior to spacecraft separation, and the Canberra tracking station in Australia was unable to lock on to SIRTF’s signal at the expected time. For several minutes, the deployment could only be inferred from the Delta second stage’s evasive burn, which used the proper amount of fuel to make the correct movement away from the spacecraft, meaning that the 865-kilogram telescope was no longer attached. Mission controllers soon breathed a collective sigh of relief as SIRTF announced itself to be in an excellent state of health and in its proper orbit and orientation. Delta II thus continues an astounding streak of successes that now stands at 54 flights in a row.
SIRTF is the last of the Great Observatories, a highly successful group that includes the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, and the venerable Hubble Space Telescope. It will map the sky in the infrared spectrum with resolution and sensitivity far surpassing its predecessors, IRAS (Delta 166) and COBE (Delta 189). SIRTF was first announced over two decades ago and suffered delays too numerous to mention during its development, leading many to joke that its acronym stood for “Someday It’s Ready To Fly.” The $1.2 billion telescope — perhaps the most expensive payload ever to fly on Delta — uses an innovative approach to cooling its instruments that substantially reduced the system’s overall weight and allowed it to be launched aboard the relatively economical medium-class vehicle. Over the next three months, the instruments will be cooled to a few degrees above absolute zero and calibrated. The first images are expected to be released around December, at which time NASA will announce the winner of the SIRTF Naming Contest.
19-Aug-03 | Stages to Saturn returns to print
Not exactly Delta-related news — unless you delve deep into the heritage of the RS-27 main engine — but this author wanted to mention that the University Press of Florida will soon re-issue one of the greatest technological histories ever to become a NASA Special Publication. Stages to Saturn: A Technological History of the Apollo/Saturn Launch Vehicles, by Roger E. Bilstein, chronicles the huge leaps in engineering, metallurgy, computers, and myriad other fields that were necessary to build and fly the Saturn V rocket that took man to the moon. The reprint contains the complete text, photos, and illustrations of the wildly informative original, and is available for pre-order at 30% off from Amazon.com. I highly recommend it.
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