Delta 4 Inaugural Launch A Success

brandido writes "Space.com is reporting that the Delta 4 has lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 5:40 pm EST. According to the Article: 'Boeing's Delta 4 has lifted off from pad 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Everything appeared to be working normally with the rocket as it made its initial climb out over the Atlantic Ocean during the first minute.' It will now take the two-stage rocket some 37 minutes to deliver the Eutelsat W5 spacecraft to orbit, so keep your fingers crossed all continues to go well.'" Looks like everything went swimmingly well.

All Looked good from a live view

[PDG]

I watched the event live on TV and they had a camera showing it from the rockets view.

You could watch each stage fire off. Pretty neat.

Real question I ask, is why are they back to using the Deltas? Didn't the older ones blow up enough or are the Shuttles THAT booked up?

why so many launch pads?

[NeMon'ess]

What use can there be for at least 37 launch pads on one base?

Re:All Looked good from a live view

[Cali Thalen]

The Delta rockets have a pretty good (98%+?) success rate. I have a tendancy to get them confused with the larger Titan 4 series that seemed to want to blow up a little more frequently. I believe the Titan 4 has a failure rate under 10% now...not that that's a good number, but it's better than it used to be.

I was working for a company that did work on both, and I remember the huge disappointment when one of the Titan 4's exploded at launch...it seemed like the program would be declining rather quickly after that. Job security and all. The Delta program always seemed much more reliable in comarison.

Can I see too?

[Trevalyx]

Does anyone else really wish they could go see a launch live? I've had a fascination with space and rockets since I was a child (geek, what? JUST because I have glowwy-glowwy rounded uv-sensitive cables inside my computer, DOESN'T MEAN...) but have never had the fortune to see a launch in person.. Sure, watching on TV is nice and all, but it cannot begin to compare to the joy of seeing a rocket claw it's way into the sky (mmmmmm.... fiiiirrrre) and become it's own star for a while..
-Trev

Finally...

[pla]

Does this mean we've gone back to the "sane" method of launching satellites, and can stop wasting the shuttles (which cost WAY more to send up than a "disposable" launch vehicle) on such mundane tasks?

I hope so. While I totally support "real" space exploration, the shuttles have, for the past few decades, scammed the US out of billions (trillions, yet?) of dollars. We use them for nothing even remotely interesting, yet pay a fortune to maintain and occasionally launch them.

Re:All Looked good from a live view

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Well, the Shuttle is booked for ISS, but the military hate using it anyway ever since the Challenger fiasco. If a Delta fails then their black projects don't get held up for years on end.

Also, they can't buy services elsewhere (the Russians have comparable or larger vehicles, for maybe 1/10 the cost), but a lot of these space programs, pretty much, are job creation programs for American citizens so they try to keep the tax dollars in America (quite apart from any security issues).

Re:Can I see too?

[mcd7756]

I grew up on Merritt Island in the 50s thru 70's. The space shots were just a fact of life. I don't remember the Gemini's, but the Apollo's were awesome. I saw all of them. We lived about 25 miles south of the Cape. When a Saturn V went up, the windows rattled, the ground shook...even the leaves on the trees vibrated. You could feel it shaking your body. Then you'd see this monster flame slowly going up into the sky, with this teeny, tiny white speck at the top. They say those at the press stands could see the shock waves rippling across the ground toward them Even saw Apollo 17, which was a night shot. Sat out on Courtenay Parkway near Jefferson Jr. High School. Listening to the radio I could hear the countdown. At 7 seconds, the engines would cut on, (Took 7 secs at full power before it lifted off) and the whole north sky lit up like the sun coming up. A few seconds later this awesome flaming sword thing started rising up into the sky. The stars weren't visible and my shadow behind me rapidly shrank as the spacecraft ascended. It was way cool. And, it was an incredible demonstration of what flawed humanity can do when they work together. -Mike

Re:All Looked good from a live view

[zorgon]

It was the Delta 3 that had an abysmal debut. 2 out of 3 launches failed. Delta 2s have been around for 25-30 years and are quite reliable but are muuuuuch smaller than the 4s. The 4's first stage (the Common Booster Core) is all new technology.

What i saw when I watched this one go

[DoraLives]

I was at work, at Cocoa Beach Surf Company. Apparently I work well enough, 'cause my boss kindly allowed me to go up to the top of our five story parking garage to watch the shot this evening. On top of the garage I met my son, and an old friend who is now senior photographer for the local paper hereabouts, Florida Today. My son had the scanner and his telescope (we're both pretty seriously into this). Nice view from our perch, and we could plainly see the launch vehicle, sitting there on the pad out on the Cape, lit up by the searchlights. After sundown, but not dark by any means. The guy on the Photo Ops channel counted it down and when they fired it up, it put out an impressive blaze of orange flame, and began lumbering upward. Kinda slow getting off the ground and as my son (staring through the telescope) called "tower clear!" I made a comment about how it was nearly as slow as an Atlas getting going. Soon enough, it got to moving right along, arcing seaward over the lights of Cocoa Beach with a brilliant yellow-orange flame topping a dense column of smoke from the two strap on solid rocket motors. Nice rumble when the sound finally arrived. It moved into and above the deck of thin cirrus that covered the whole sky, and remained plainly visible and audible. I wondered aloud to my son as to how it was going to look when the solids went out and were jettisoned. (The main engine is LOX/LH2 and has no sensible flame that you can see. It's see-through clear, kinda like an alcohol flame or something like that) Soon enough, the two solids separated and could be seen winking on and off, tumbling over and over in free fall, now in direct sunlight way the hell and gone up there. The Delta IV continued on its merry way, now arcing (apparently) downward, as it sped towards an aim point vastly beyond our local horizon. Surprisingly, despite the LOX/LH2 flame, it remained QUITE bright. Moreso even than the Shuttle, which has an identical deal (LOX/LH2 clear flame) going on after SRB sep. Not sure what the deal is with that. With the Shuttle, the brilliant light is coming from the inside of the three SSME's. The nozzle lining is white hot and puts off a pretty bright light. I guess that's what was going on with the Delta, also, but since the Shuttle has three motors and the Delta has one, I just wasn't expecting that much bright light following SRM sep. Anyhoo, it stayed visible for quite a while, before fading into the cirrus murk out over the ocean. Shortly after everybody else departed the parking garage roof (I'd put a couple of tourists on to the fact that there was going to be a little show today and they were fully stoked at what they saw) my son and I noticed a weird cloud at extreme altitude, with direct sunlight shining on it. We had earlier discussed whether or not this one would "blow a balloon" and had decided that it wouldn't. ["Balloons" form when rockets exit the sensible atmosphere and the exhaust gasses from the engine nozzles begin spreading out without any resistance from the surrounding atmosphere, which isn't there anymore. On evening shots, with the sun the exact perfect distance BELOW the local horizon and the sky the exact perfect shade of dark, the exhaust gas will rapidly expand, and form a weirdly beautiful {fucking GORGEOUS, to be more precise) spectacle in the darkling sky, enveloping the pinpoint brilliance of the rocket itself, before fading away a few minutes later] This bird did NOT blow a "balloon" (we've NEVER seen LOX/LH2 do it and have more or less decided it just doesn't happen), but it DID leave that weirdie bluish-white glowing cloud. Not sure what the deal was. We'll probably both be very old and very gray before an identical set of circumstances repeats. Whatever. Anyway, it was a real pretty shot, and we're glad the vehicle performed nominally and put the payload where it's supposed to be.

Re:Cost and reliability

[NecrosisLabs]

The Atlas V [lmco.com] has a similar throw weight, but uses a Russian designed motor. Commercial space is a tough field right now: There are a lot of competitive products for as many payloads... Who knows, maybe they'll drag out the spaceplane one more time.

Re:Yes, it could. Re:range

[addaon]

Yes, I do. I would gladly go to Mars, under the understanding that I couldn't return, if there was about a 90% chance of surviving the first year, and some system in place (say, solar or thermal radioisotope power to melt some ice, split off some oxygen) which gave even a 10% chance of making it further. Yeah, chances are I'd end up dead... but even the chance would be worth it. NASA has demonstrated that progress can be made by being conservative and following reasonable saftey guidelines, but it just ain't as much fun, and it's slower! Not saying NASA's doing it wrong, they're not. But if I really had the option, yes, i'd volunteer. Wouldn't you?

Re:Cost and reliability

[Howzer]

I've said it before but it needs saying again:

The STS is a 100 tonne to LEO launch vehicle.

How can that be? Well, if you take off that 90 tonne waste-of-space 70s technology monster that is the frickin' orbiter we could get some real lifting done around here! Has this "radical" design been actually engineered? of course it has [marssociety.org]. It's called the Ares booster.

Now if only NASA would get over their bad case of NIH we could do things, like, oh, I don't know, throw the ISS to orbit in 3 shots, go to Mars (2 shots), go back to the moon (1 shot)? And that's just three off the top of my head. In 6 launches. Sigh.