Conference 7.286::space

    Is this the very one that was rescued from a bad orbit by the shuttle
    a few years ago?  (Was it Challenger that did the rescuing <choke>?)
    
    Burns

    Yup, it is the one that was recovered. And I think it was Challenger
    that recovered it (not sure on this point).
    
    gary

    liftoff is schedule for 5:22 pm est today (friday the 20th of MAR)
    This should be a big plus for the US in others eyes as 
    the DOD gave up a "star war" reasearh sat launch DELTA
    to launch the Palapa B2P
                 
    Indonesia was eager to launch as there only other com sat
    Palpa B2 is being plagued with technical problems and could
    fial at any time
    
    jb
    
    

    Does this delta have stapons.  (BTW What is a stapon?)  Just an
    interested and concerned novice to orbital space...Les
    

    This wasn't just another Delta launch, it was the last commercial
    Delta launch.  NASA will no longer launch commercial payloads.
    
    The launch was flawless, the seventh in a row.
    
    I don't know what stapons are, either.  I have a feeling that they
    are auxiliary boosters strapped to the first stage?  The pictures
    of the launch were quite exciting especially when these boosters
    were jettisoned.

    Don

>    I don't know what stapons are, either.

Perhaps a misspelling for "strapon"(or it that "strap-on"?)?

    Whoever wrote "stapons" meant to write "strapons".  Strapons, perhaps
    more correctly called strap-ons, are the nine auxiliary solid-prpellant
    boosters strapped to the Delta first stage.  Delta was originally
    a three-stage development of the Thor IRBM, which had a single
    liquid-fuel engine.  Over the years, the solid boosters (I believe
    they're Castors, built by Aerojet-General) were added to increase
    payload, with three solids being added first, then six, and finally,
    the nine used in today's Delta 39XX series.  The original name for this 
    configuration was TAD, for Thrust-Augmented Delta.

    The launch was televised by CNN, showing about the first five minutes
    of flight, including seperation of the first 6 'stRapons' and airstart
    and subsequent sep of the remaining three. I setup the tape and
    forgot to press recoord. Sigh. A very spectacular flight.
    
    Where did the 'stapon' reference come from? It sounds like the sort of
    typo I'd make. The term strapons came into use in the very early days
    of the Delta. In order to increase liftoff thrust and orbital payload,
    NASA decided to augment the Thor stage by 'strapping on' three solid
    propellant Castor I boosters. This was the Delta D, aka Thrust
    Augmented Delta or TAD. The Delta 3000 series uses Castor IV's, up to
    nine of them. The first stage cannot take the stress of all 9 firing at
    once so the strapons are staggered. 
    
    The term strapon applies to any seperate boosters attached to the first
    stage. Typically thay are solids but need not be (e.g. Ariane-44L).
    Even the big 120 inch solids on the Titan 3C/D/E/34D/4 are sometimes
    referred to as strapons (I think it is more accurate to refer to
    them as stage 0).
                                                             
    That launch was the last planned non-military launch of a 3000 series
    Delta. Three remain for SDI launches.
    
    gary 

    Re; 269.7
    
    Never mind.  :-) 
    
    George

    	WHY is NASA no longer launching commercial payloads?!
    
    	Do they want to be totally left in the dust by ESA, China, the
    Soviets, and maybe even India?!
    
    	Larry
    

    NASA is no longer launching commercial payloads because President
    Reagan thinks that is the best way to get commercial firms into
    the commercial launch vehicle business.
    
    No comments on the wisdom of this, just the answer to your ?
    

    Sorry about the stapon typo guys.  Read one of the earlier notes
    with a type-o an it stuck in my mind that-a-way.  Do appreciate
    the thourough comments by you all on the "real" question.  I was
    just making shure the Delta had additional solid boost attached.
    Was making sure because of the curious note reguarding solid booster
    performance in connection with the shuttle.  NASA MGMT had one
    perception on reliability, others had several orders of magnitudes
    less.  Since the Delta has nine solids per, I am curious as to whose
    perceptions on solid reliability prove correct.
    
    Does anyone have any idea as to the cause of last years Delta failures?
    
    Were they connected to the solids?  If so, has any one discussed
    in terms of what I would consider a curious coincidence or a true
    solid reliability of one failure in 90 or so launches.  This would
    mean that we should see another Delta failure within the next three
    to four lanuches?
    
    Les

    I thought the last Delta failure was supposedly caused by shorts
    in the main engine circuitry.  The solids didn't seem to have
    any part, at least from what I read a few months after the
    incident.
    

    re .12
    
    To the best of my knowledge, no Delta has ever experienced a failure
    in the Castor strapons. A simple engine like the Castor (propellant
    cast in one segment, no moving parts) should be extremely reliable
    as long as it goes through adequate preflight checkout.
    
    Solids should be more reliable than liquid fuel engines, for the
    most part. There is much less to break. You just have to be careful
    in handling and checkout (i.e. avoid deformed joints, adequately
    check propellant/case bonding, etc) The SRB design probably lends
    itself to lower reliability. The joints we know about; the thrust
    vector control has been the source of a number of near fatal failures.
    I think it is a mixture of forced compromise and a little of 'we
    can rebuild it, make it better than it was'.
    
    The Delta failure last year (I can only recall one) was caused by loss
    of guidance control of the RS-27 engine in the first stage. I think it
    was traced to sloppy preflight prep of a unit that presented a single
    point of failure. It hadn't failed in who-knows-how-many Thor and
    Thor-derived launches. 
    
    The Titan 34D explosion was caused by the bond between the propellant
    and the casing coming apart. Case bonded solids rely upon the integrity
    of this bond to protect the casing. Better preflight testing is
    now in place (again, it hadn't happened in quite a few Titan launches).
    I don't know the cause of the earlier Titan 34D failure (pre
    Challenger). I don't think it was the solids.
    
    gary
    
    p.s. if it was my typo, it probably would have been strapnos or
    starpons. Dyslexics of the world, untie!

    Correct me if I'm wrong but...
    
    According to what I read in the Globe some months back, Reagan's
    mandate did not eliminate commercial payloads so much as severely
    restricting them.
    
    I remember seeing some kind of pie chart that gave the space each
    type of payload would given as a percentage.  Military was obviously
    first on the list.  Research/scientific was second and commercial
    was somewhere around 11%.
    
    Also, NASA has outstanding commercial contracts, don't they? [For
    the Shuttle, that is]  I don't think they can reneg on a signed
    contract.
    
    Who has the straight story?  My memory is a little fuzzy.

    Well, in my opinion, NASA should have no direct involvement in the
    routine launching of commercial satellites. They should restrict
    themselves to R&D and exploration. If they want to 'run' KSC or
    other launch facilities, maybe that is reasonable (although I think
    they already contract out to TWA or someone to do that).
    
    They should leave commercial space to people whjo want to do that
    and who want to make a few $$ at it. The whole idea of NASA wanting
    to make something like the Shuttle 'profitable' is ludicrous. NASA
    have been downright obstructionist about commercialisation of space.
    They have blocked efforts for private Delta and Centaur launches
    and have been very uncooperative about the use of launch facilities.
    
    If they don't get out of the way soon, people will be lining up
    with their comsats (in sealed customs-proof containers of course)
    to launch them on Ariane and Proton launch vehicles.
    
    Flame off.
    
    gary
                                                                  

    At this point in time, ^ it appears that NASA cannot properly
    discipline itself when it comes to the LAUNCH DECISION BASICS.  Trying
    to push Friday's (Mar 28 )Atlas centaur launch through a thunderstorm
    only resulted in seeding the clouds with millions worth of rocket and
    satelite parts and caused same to rain in the ocean, 3 mi down range.
    
  				WHY?
    
    Can the LUNCH process we appear to have adopted be up graded to
    a LAUNCH process?   (WHAT THE HAY, this time we only lost a little
    hardware.)  Last year and 30 days ago we lunched 7 dedicated people.
    
    Has any thing realy changed PCD (Post Challenger Disaster)?????
    F-LO 
    Les

    I can't imagine ANYONE (even a government-employed management moron)
    being so STUPID as to take chances during a launch, especially when
    you consider NASA is trying to build up its battered image.
    
    I bet this will make the astronaut corps feel "real good" about
    NASA's new "safety first" image.
    

    what about ESD protection, can we launch ICBM in a storm
    It gives me a bad feeling about other launch problems
    
    yes I agree it is stupid to launch a man or a peace time
    satellite without perfect wx and other conditions, there
    is no reason to take risk with a life or with a 100 million
    dollars satellite  except during wartime, ( I hope never happens) 
                               
    But does this mean our Mil. Rockets have the same problem?
    One of the problems with a few grains of sand controlling
    tons of metal is the fact that ESD radiation etc can cause
    very dangerous problems, could this also be why we see an
    incress in Mil Plane crashes - I think there were 3 in the
    last week alone all different types
    
    jb
    

    	Perhaps NASA should consider launching all future rockets from
    Vandenburg or another facility in Southern California - at least
    there the weather is much better than Florida year-round.
    
    	Larry