Boeing sucessfully test launches Delta 4 Heavy rocket

Ma Deuce · Post by **Ma Deuce** » 2004-12-22 12:37am

CNN wrote:Boeing test-launches mammoth new rocket
Delta 4 Heavy designed to lift large military satellites into orbit

Tuesday, December 21, 2004 Posted: 7:12 PM EST (0012 GMT)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) -- A massive new Boeing rocket lumbered from its seaside pad Tuesday on a mission to prove the vehicle is capable of lofting super-sized military satellites into orbit.

Flames and smoke engulfed the lower portion of the 232-foot-tall, triple-bodied rocket as it labored to clear the launch tower before gaining momentum and shooting skyward.

The successful launch was a critical milestone for the Delta 4 Heavy, which features three of the company's common core boosters joined side-by-side. Fired simultaneously, each of the three hydrogen-powered Rocketdyne-built RS-68 main engines generates 17 million horsepower, about the equivalent of 11 Hoover Dams.

After the three main boosters fell away, a Pratt & Whitney-built RL10 liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen-powered second stage kicked in to boost the payloads into orbit.

Identical boosters had flown individually on three earlier Delta 4 Medium launches. Tuesday's launch marked the first time the boosters have been flown in the triple-body configuration.

"This launch system is the most complex system to come to the pad since the space shuttle," said Dan Collins, vice president of Boeing's expendable launch systems.

The Air Force paid Boeing $140 million for the demonstration flight. Rather than risk an expensive military satellite aboard the new rocket, a dummy payload designed to replicate future military satellites rode atop the rocket and collected information that will be used to evaluate the mission. The rocket also carried two tiny experimental satellites designed by university students.

Air Force Col. Mark Owen said the launch was a milestone in the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program, funded by the Air Force to create a new generation of rockets to lift heavy military payloads into orbit.

"America has a lot riding on this," he said.

Nice, modular concept, essentially nothing more than 3 medium Delta IV's strapped together. Should make a good alternative to the Titan IV.

Ma Deuce · Post by **Ma Deuce** » 2004-12-22 12:40am

Ach! that was a mildly amusing typo I made in the thread title

.

Post by **Beowulf** » 2004-12-22 12:41am

Typo fixed

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2004-12-22 12:46am

Does it bother anyone else thinking of a Delta as a heavy?

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2004-12-22 12:49am

Yeah, but its good application of available technology. It seems like a Russian thing, rather than our usual expensive shit model for attacking problems.

Might Delta Heavy be a booster for the CEV for orbital missions?

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2004-12-22 01:39am

I don't mean it bothers me to use a Delta as a heavy. I just find it funny that Deltas were once tiny and they are now giant.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2004-12-22 02:55pm

Howedar wrote:Does it bother anyone else thinking of a Delta as a heavy?

Nothing less than a Saturn V is 'heavy' in my mind'.

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2004-12-22 03:17pm

Uraniun235 wrote:
Howedar wrote:Does it bother anyone else thinking of a Delta as a heavy?
Nothing less than a Saturn V is 'heavy' in my mind'.

I miss the Saturn V.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2004-12-22 04:49pm

I miss Energia.

Mitth`raw`nuruodo · Post by **Mitth`raw`nuruodo** » 2004-12-22 04:53pm

I saw this launch. It was interesting in that it moved very slowly, there was no contrail until it got a good bit up into the sky, and (compared to most other rocket launches I've seen), it took a long time for the first rumblings of the thing to reach me.

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2004-12-22 06:12pm

Illuminatus Primus wrote:I miss Energia.

Amen.

Seggybop · Post by **Seggybop** » 2004-12-22 06:25pm

I visited the Boeing Delta rocket factory several months ago, and saw the fabrication for these. It was all extremely impressive.

And while we're on this series, I miss Nerva. T_T

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-12-22 09:10pm

Apparently there are proposals to use seven(!) CCBs on an ultimate Delta 4 configuration.

As for Saturn V, the F-1A upgrade would have given it a rather nice boost in performance. There were also some crazy proposals like strapping four S-Vs together for over a million pounds to 486-km orbit

Seggybop · Post by **Seggybop** » 2004-12-22 09:24pm

phongn wrote:As for Saturn V, the F-1A upgrade would have given it a rather nice boost in performance. There were also some crazy proposals like strapping four S-Vs together for over a million pounds to 486-km orbit

Space battleship? >_>

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2004-12-23 04:01am

Patrick Degan wrote:I miss the Saturn V.

Everyone misses the Saturn V.

Did you know that the Shuttle was going to be part of a two tier system
in the 1980s? The STS would handle the mundane cargo tasks of ferrying
up food and other stuff to orbiting stations, while the Block II run of
Saturn Vs (with tail fins deleted) would have handled heavy lift.

Unfortunately the Block II run of Saturn V was cancelled, leaving
NASA holding the bag with the shuttle alone.

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2004-12-23 04:07am

<hab mode=on>
where's my V666 with Orion pulse drive motherfucker
</hab mode>

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2004-12-23 01:04pm

IIRC, Von Braun had also proposed another rocket with eight F-1 engines (compared to S-V's five) that could do direct-ascent to the Moon.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2004-12-23 01:15pm

Nova.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-12-23 02:20pm

Illuminatus Primus wrote:Nova.

Strictly speaking, Nova was the name for any number of follow-own designs to the S-V, including the 8x F-1A design.

MKSheppard wrote: Everyone misses the Saturn V.

Did you know that the Shuttle was going to be part of a two tier system
in the 1980s? The STS would handle the mundane cargo tasks of ferrying
up food and other stuff to orbiting stations, while the Block II run of
Saturn Vs (with tail fins deleted) would have handled heavy lift.

Unfortunately the Block II run of Saturn V was cancelled, leaving
NASA holding the bag with the shuttle alone.

They were also forced to go to the USAF to get funding assistance, which meant that the STS was greatly enlarged to let it lift large satellites and fly a polar track. Those cost overruns also forced them to go to the tile design rather than something like Dyna-Soar's all-metal design.

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2004-12-23 03:05pm

MKSheppard wrote:
Patrick Degan wrote:I miss the Saturn V.
Everyone misses the Saturn V.

Did you know that the Shuttle was going to be part of a two tier system
in the 1980s? The STS would handle the mundane cargo tasks of ferrying
up food and other stuff to orbiting stations, while the Block II run of
Saturn Vs (with tail fins deleted) would have handled heavy lift.

Unfortunately the Block II run of Saturn V was cancelled, leaving
NASA holding the bag with the shuttle alone.

Vaguely. I remember that at the time, the Space Shuttle was all they talked of. I also remember all the promises they made for the STS: 100 flights a year, two-week turnaround time for each vehicle, super-cheap satelite launch costs. I've still got the NASA press-kits for the Shuttle which were issued back then. My father used to bring home all sorts of neat NASA PI material from work for me. By the time he and his team at Michoud had any involvement with the Space Shuttle programme, the Saturn V was dead and buried. So was Apollo, and Skylab, and any talk of a manned Mars mission.

A real pity.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-12-23 03:46pm

My dad did control software for the SSME. IIRC, the original plan was four ten shuttles with a two-week turnaround time offering continuous flights (as Degan noted). Spiralling cost overruns and the amount of time it took to overhaul the shuttle due to its tiles killed its promise of cheap space travel, though

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2004-12-23 04:19pm

I will now rage impotently at how the Saturn V is cheaper, lb to dollar to orbit, than the STS.

And a little more impotent rage for the fact we're still doing little chemical rockets.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2004-12-23 05:21pm

phongn wrote:My dad did control software for the SSME. IIRC, the original plan was four ten shuttles with a two-week turnaround time offering continuous flights (as Degan noted). Spiralling cost overruns and the amount of time it took to overhaul the shuttle due to its tiles killed its promise of cheap space travel, though

Cheep? They where so optimistic it was expected that the shuttle program could actually turn a profit for NASA which would fund other programs, while still being cheaper then the alterative of expendable booster rockets.

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2004-12-23 05:24pm

so what ever became of the idea of building an amerika bomber like launch rail into a mountain and using nuclear reactors to magnetically propell a payload into orbit?

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2004-12-23 06:36pm

Patrick Degan wrote:A real pity.

No, what's infuriating is this:

Space Station Freedom wrote:The first launch would now take place in March 1994, the Station would be permanently manned from April 1995 onwards and be completed in March 1997 after 17 flights.

The expanded 'Dual Keel' Space Station 'Freedom' made a final comeback in 1989 when President Bush proposed a Moon base by 2001-2005 and missions to Mars by 2018. NASA estimated the 'Dual Keel' lunar spacecraft support facility, additional power generators, crew modules for 14-16 astronauts etc. would cost at least $1 billion.

The problem with space exploration is that the US is fickle, we always cancel
something that might work, sending back the engineers to the drawing boards
for another 10 years, upon when the newly redesigned idea Mk 2 is
near completition, it gets defunded or cancelled, sending them back
to the drawing boards again...