ULA Launches Final Delta Rocket After 64 Years (space.com) 22
After 64 years of service, ULA on Tuesday launched its last-ever Delta rocket carrying a classified payload for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). "The powerful booster departed Space Launch Complex-37 (SLC-37) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 12:53 p.m. EDT (1653 GMT), literally setting itself on fire for the 16th and final time," reports Space.com. From the report: That spectacle, which was unique to the Delta IV in its heaviest configuration, was the result of hydrogen building up in the flame trench and then rising up alongside the rocket after it was used to cool down the three RS-68A engines to cryogenic temperatures. When the engines fired, the hydrogen ignited and flames lapped at the orange insulation covering the core stage and its two side-mounted boosters. The two boosters were jettisoned about four minutes into the flight, followed by the core, or first stage, separating one minute and 45 seconds later. A single RL10C-2-1 engine on the Delta cryogenic second stage then took over, propelling the NROL-70 payload into space. Due to national security concerns, coverage of the launch ceased following fairing jettison at about 6 minutes and 40 seconds into the flight.
ULA is retiring the Delta IV, and eventually its other legacy rocket, the Atlas V, in favor of its newly introduced Vulcan, which flew a near-perfect first mission in January. The Vulcan was developed to replace both long-flying rockets in all of their configurations. "This is a great mission to think about that transition, because national security space missions is our core and the unique set of missions there require a high-energy launch vehicle. We designed Vulcan specifically for that," said [Tory Bruno, chief executive officer of United Launch Alliance]. In addition to being the 16th Delta IV Heavy, Tuesday's launch was also the 45th liftoff of a Delta IV, the 35th Delta IV to fly from Florida and the 389th Delta launch of any kind since 1960 (of which 294 were sent skyward from Cape Canaveral). Half of the Delta IV Heavy launches were devoted to sending NRO payloads into orbit. The rocket and its less powerful configurations were also used in support of NASA, NOAA (the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), U.S. Air Force and commercial payloads.
ULA is retiring the Delta IV, and eventually its other legacy rocket, the Atlas V, in favor of its newly introduced Vulcan, which flew a near-perfect first mission in January. The Vulcan was developed to replace both long-flying rockets in all of their configurations. "This is a great mission to think about that transition, because national security space missions is our core and the unique set of missions there require a high-energy launch vehicle. We designed Vulcan specifically for that," said [Tory Bruno, chief executive officer of United Launch Alliance]. In addition to being the 16th Delta IV Heavy, Tuesday's launch was also the 45th liftoff of a Delta IV, the 35th Delta IV to fly from Florida and the 389th Delta launch of any kind since 1960 (of which 294 were sent skyward from Cape Canaveral). Half of the Delta IV Heavy launches were devoted to sending NRO payloads into orbit. The rocket and its less powerful configurations were also used in support of NASA, NOAA (the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), U.S. Air Force and commercial payloads.
Re:64 years? (Score:5, Informative)
Not only have there been multiple attempts at reuse (think space shuttle), a system almost identical in principles to the SpaceX one was attempted long ago. It's not that this hasn't been tried and not that it hasn't been tried by good people with some success (see the DC-X, a government program which showed that what SpaceX does is possible). The thing is that it's actually hard to do right and if you do it wrong it's a disaster. Musk might be an idiot nowadays but some of the engineers that worked at SpaceX have been really really good and Musk used to be pretty good at inspiring people to come together.
Re:64 years? (Score:5, Interesting)
And why do you have the opinion that Musk is an "idiot nowadays"?
Re: 64 years? (Score:3, Insightful)
And why do you have the opinion that Musk is an "idiot nowadays"?
The pedo guy?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And why do you have the opinion that Musk is an "idiot nowadays"?
Good point. He's always been an idiot
Re: 64 years? (Score:3)
I think itâ(TM)s more that itâ(TM)s time hadnâ(TM)t come. It needed a bunch of computer control, and engine technologies to come together to make it realistically possible.
Re: (Score:2)
I think that's true. DC-X did work but it didn't really carry payload and it didn't go to orbit. That likely means that the design compromises were very different from spaceX. That's a classic "an engineer is a person that can do for 50p what any fool can do for £1" (That's "an engineer is a person who can do for $0.39 what any fool can do for $0.79" for the differently financed among us). In this case, it's the trick of having enough fuel left to land without needing much more fuel to take off with a
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, right, it's all them.
Rather than, say, what my late ex, who was an engineer at the Cape for 17 years used to tell me: she and other engineers kept trying, and the time-servers in management kept refusing to sign off.
Overview of Delta variants (Score:5, Informative)
Scott Manley did a couple of videos showing the long [youtube.com] and convoluted [youtube.com] history of the Delta family.
Good! (Score:3, Informative)
The United Launch Alliance has never tried to advance rocketry, just continually profit from launching the same old shitty rockets. The only reason this rocket is because modern rocketry has left the ULA in the dust. I still recall the ULA calling reusable rockets a pipe-dream and as the first successful landing became ever-closer then they suddenly put out a CGI video of their "plan" to make a reusable rocket as if they had always been working on it.
The ULA is nothing more than a money pit.
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The reason for the same old is because the promised market for high cadence launches has only vaguely materialized. Over 60% [arstechnica.com] of SpaceX launches last year were for Starlink. Bringing the cost down to launch your own massive constellation might make sense, but how long can you keep that up?
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It relies on very high cadance to not be a huge waste of money, since the thing is functionally useless past LEO without refuelling.
If 60% of your cadance is you serving yourself, at what point do you admit your economics don't work?
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most metal rocket (Score:3)
https://www.ulalaunch.com/docs... [ulalaunch.com]
science fiction (Score:2)
Much like a science fiction story where civilization no longer knows how to make widgets, and they just used up the last one. Or maybe Idiocracy.