Boeing Successfully Launches Mammoth Delta-4 Heavy 327
nick-bts writes "CNN, the BBC and Space.com are reporting the first successful launch of the new Boeing Delta-4 Heavy, capable of lifting 23 tonnes into a low-Earth orbit (similar to the space shuttle). Personally I think the Ariane 5 and 'Satan' are way sexier..."
NOT successful (Score:5, Informative)
How Successful Really? (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.spacetoday.net/Summary/2713 [spacetoday.net]
Delta 4 Heavy launch comes up short
Posted: Wed, Dec 22, 2004, 9:30 AM ET (1430 GMT)
The first Delta 4 Heavy launch vehicle lifted off Tuesday afternoon but a problem with the vehicle's first stage has apparently kept the vehicle from deploying its payload in the proper orbit. The vehicle lifted off from pad 37B at Cape Canaveral at 4:50 pm EST (2150 GMT), more than two hours into a three-hour launch window because of minor problems during pre-launch preparations, and initially the launch appeared to be normal. However, the Delta 4's first stage -- three identical core boosters -- shut down eight seconds earlier than expected. To compensate, the upper stage fired longer than planned during the second of three burns needed to place the primary payload, a demonstration satellite, into geosynchronous orbit, and as a result ran out of propellant during the final burn. Contact has also not been established with two nanosatellites that were deployed from the booster 16 minutes after launch. Despite the underperformance of the first stage, Boeing officials said they, as well as the Air Force, who paid for the flight, were pleased with the launch.
Re:Delta-9 (Score:5, Informative)
Saturn 5 vs. Delta 4 Heavy (Score:5, Informative)
Still a few problems (Score:4, Informative)
"We had a shorter than expected first stage burn. That was compensated for by longer first and second burns in the second stage," said Dan Collins, Boeing vice president for Expendable Launch Systems,
And: [decaturdaily.com] "The delay at five minutes was due to a loss of communication between launch control and the vehicle destruct system. Boeing spokeswoman Monty Vest described this."
Re:I offer my congratulations (Score:5, Informative)
Energia
Saturn V:
Delta IV Heavy
Re:NOT successful (Score:3, Informative)
If you read the back story of the project, Boeing built the first new launch facilities in the last 35 years in order to launch this series of rockets. Getting off the pad on the first try with this configuration seems like a success to me.
Re:space shuttle why now? (Score:5, Informative)
"Early in the mission, the crew deployed Spartan, a freeflying solar instrument package that was supposed to make independent observations of the sun's outer atmosphere and the solar wind. However, the equipment failed upon deployment and was unable to complete its mission. During their first spacewalk Winston Scott and Takao Doi grabbed the spacecraft by hand and berthed it in the payload bay for its return to Earth. Since landing, the Spartan satellite has been impounded for study to determine the cause of the failure."
Granted, the mission wasn't to go up and retrieve a broken satellite, but they did, in fact, retrieve the satellite and bring it back to Earth.
Re:space shuttle why now? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Best Technology Still Western: Good! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:space shuttle why now? (Score:5, Informative)
Concur.
There hasn't ever been a shuttle mission which required taking a satellite out of orbit and landing it on earth.
Incorrect. Mission 51-A [nasa.gov] and mission STS-32 [nasa.gov] both did exactly that.
There isn't any utility in doing so either.
While I have to wonder about the cost effectivness of bringing a pair of comsats back down for refurbishment and relaunch, the LDEF experiment absolutely REQUIRED that it be brought back down.
Next time, check your facts a little closer, eh?
Not Quite So Successful (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Best Technology Still Western: Good! (Score:5, Informative)
"For many years almost all sources credited China as having only four DF-5s deployed in silos, including the authoritative 1992 treatement by John Wilson Lewis and Hua Di, which asserted that as of 1992 only four DF-5 missiles on alert. However, more recent estimates suggest that some 8-11 were deployed as of 1995, and that at least 13 missiles were deployed at the end of 1997. According to the National Air Intelligence Center, as of 1998 the deployed DF-5 force consisted of "fewer than 25" missiles. As of early 1999 the total deployed DF-5 force was generally estimated at about 20 missiles. By mid-2000 some sources suggested that the total force was as many as 24 deployed missiles ["Inside The Ring" By Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough Washington Times July 28, 2000]."
They're progressing on their astronaut program at about twice the rate that the US and Russians did (albeit by standing on the shoulders of giants). They've been working on space station and lunar programs. Their rockets that are being developed are liquid fuelled, making them ill suited for adaptation to missiles. I could keep going for hours. Like China or not, it's a textbook example of a space program focused on civilian efforts.
If you want to make these claims again, don't post links to pages about Tibet, which is utterly unrelated to the topic at hand - post links to articles about China's space program.
First Time Gitters (Score:3, Informative)
Ariane 5 user manual (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Throttles (Score:3, Informative)
Re:space shuttle why now? (Score:3, Informative)
So your assertation of "merely design[ing] a new capsule to put on top of the rocket" is specious at best. There is no "mere" when it comes to designing, testing and deploying space hardware. You could use the shuttle as an example of that. The idea of "kludging" a Soyuz on top of an American launch platform is entirely ignorant, it would require nearly the same design considerations as an all-new platform...not to mention the cost of purchasing the latter from the Russians, and for each launch.
If we were to do that, it would probably be better to dust off and update the Apollo capsules and mate them to Saturn I-Bs for LEO. The V is far too big a beast for orbital missions only...not to mention the $3+ BILLION/US a copy it would cost to construct and operate one.
In these times, the budget requires us to make use of what we have now. The point of the shuttle being the only man-capable AMERICAN spacecraft available stands, because it is a stone cold fact.
Finally, I am no fan of the Shuttle. It was a compromise from the beginning and not what NASA wanted. Nixon required military adaptations to the proposed program such that it made it a vehicle that NASA essentially had forced down their throats. It should have been replaced after Challenger, as the Shuttle is the only American launch system in our space history to use solids on a man-rated platform. It cost the lives of the Challenger 78, and the aforementioned compromnises were essentially the problem with Columbia.
Instead, we should embark on a smaller re-usable spacecraft program that was indeed meant to ferry humans and small loads of cargo back and forth to orbit and leave the heavy lifting to expendable vehicles, one where the EVs have a 45-odd year history of success.
Re:Throttles (Score:4, Informative)
The point here is that by the end of a stage, the acceleration of one of these rockets (solid or liquid fueled... it doesn't matter) can be quite high, and on ICBM's it can be as high as 20 G's or more. Sometimes a payload simply can't handle that sort of acceleration (like people, but some sattelites as well), so you need to drop the amount of thurst to lower the accleration rate.
This is a mission requirement, and when you design a space payload you also specify what the maximum acceleration will be (usually in m/s^2 but sometimes in different units). When the flight profile is calculated, the rocket will have pre-programmed intervals to scale back the thrust requirements. This makes life fun and interesting, and why rocket scientists get the big $$$.
The Space Shuttle's Main Engines have this feature, and it is even more important because of the human cargo, as well as bio research materials. I believe the flight profile of the shuttle is to maintain a maximum rate of about 4-5 G's. The Saturn V, by comparison, hit about 8-9 G's at the end of the 1st and 2nd stages.
All Nixon (was Re:Saturn 5 vs. Delta 4 Heavy) (Score:2, Informative)
The infrastructure for Saturn V at KSC would soon be dismantled (after the launch of the Skylab lab on SA-513, 5/73). The last Saturn Mobile Launch Platform was converted from Saturn I-B (using the "milkstool") to the shuttle configuration after the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project launch (7/75).
Re:Best Technology Still Western: Good! (Score:2, Informative)
I know: don't feed the trolls, but I can't let this pass.
If the US space program is a purely civilian effort, why is DoD bankrolling it to such an extent?
Paul
Re:Now a VERY Hungry crew (Score:2, Informative)
Cost per pound to orbit is what's important (Score:3, Informative)
Numbers in perspective: (Score:3, Informative)
Rocket, payload to low earth orbit, payload to geosynchronous orbit
SS-18 "Satan" 8,000 lbs LEO
Atlas Centaur 10,000 lbs LEO, 4,500 lbs Geo
Ariane 5 39,000 lbs LEO, 12,000 lbs Geo
Titan IV 47,000 lbs leo, 12,760 lbs geo
Delta IV heavy 48,000 lbs LEO, 28,124 geo
Space Shuttle 63,000 lbs leo (230,000 lbs including the shuttle itself)
Space Shuttle C (doesn't exist yet) 180,000 lbs leo
Energia 190,000 lbs leo, 48,500 lbs Geo
Saturn V 285,000 lbs LEO, 107,000 lbs to the Moon
Good time to mention Nuclear Rockets (Score:3, Informative)