NASA has contracted Boeing to supply a hybrid Delta booster to launch its Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF).
The booster is a Delta II with the nine large strap-on boosters from the Delta III. This booster is also available to commercial customers for launches of 2,030kg (4,400lb) payloads into geostationary transfer orbit (GTO), an increase of over about 200kg over the standard Delta II.
The news comes as Boeing continues to wrestle with the grounded Delta III, as it investigates the accident that lost the Orion 3 satellite on the second launch in May. The first Delta III exploded last August.
The investigation into the cause of the second Delta III failure is focusing on hardware on the second stage engine, says Dave Schweikle, division director, Delta Launch Services and Program Development.
Burn
"The first burn was okay and after a 10min coast, the engine restarted but shut down almost immediately." Boeing is still aiming for a third Delta III launch in October, pending the compnay investigation.
Whether the fight will carry a live satellite, instead of dummy, will "depend on the customers", says Schweikle. An ICO mobile communications satellite is scheduled for the October flight but if no customer wants to fly, the Delta III could carry a dummy satellite, in the same way the first Boeing Sea Launch flight did.
Schweikle says that despite the failure of the second launch to place the satellite in the right orbit, "the flight was totally successful up to the moment of the shutdown, so a lot of the systems that did not get a chance to be tried out on the exploding first launch were demonstrated."
The second failure was not the same as an exploded booster.
Despite the fact that the Delta IV booster is running hot on its heels and heading towards a first flight in 2001, and that the Delta IV medium will have a similar capability, the Delta III has an assured career until 2003, Schweikle says.
Source: Flight Daily News
