NASA's X-RAY TIMING Explorer satellite (XTE) was launched into low-Earth orbit by a Delta 2/7920 booster from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on 30 December, 1995, after a series of technical faults had delayed the mission by four months.
The 3,040kg XTE will be used for a two-year, in-depth, timing and spectral study of X-ray sources to make advances in knowledge about individual stars, galaxies, stellar systems, black holes, quasars and galaxy cores.
The two-stage Delta 2/7920, the second to be launched, carried a new, redundant, avionics system called The Redundant Inertial Flight Control Assembly. This includes an array of redundant laser gyros and accelerometers, and has two separate power sources. A three-stage Delta 2/ 7925 model is scheduled to launch the Koreasat 2 communications satellite on 14 January.
McDonnell Douglas Delta 2/7520 boosters will launch 15 more Iridium satellites for Motorola's Satellite Communications division, bringing to 55 the number to be launched five-at-a-time by the rocket to the year 2000.
Source: Flight International
