Conference 7.286::space

    When the last existing KH satellite drops out of orbit, I'd be
    willing to bet that something will be launched - regardless of the
    state of our solid rockets.
    
    I understand we have one KH11 (Titan launchable) and then KH12's
    (Shuttle launchable).  I doubt the NRO will sit still with these
    on the ground and nothing in the air.
    
    - dave

    It takes a long time to develop a booster, counting both design
    and build time.  Maybe we'll dust off one of the "mothballed"
    Saturn Vs, or an older liquid-fueled booster.  Could be very
    interesting.  Did AWST get any photos of the Titan malfunctions?
        John Sauter

    Yes, they did. (April 29? issue) Current theory is that one of the
    self-destruct charges accidently went off and that the decision
    to destroy the rocket was then made (within seconds)
    
    Pat
    

    If that was a deliberate decision of a Range Safty Officer to destruct
    when it did, I'd have to say they had trigger-happy RSO.
    
    I was RCA's Range Safety Engineer at Cape Canaveral for several
    years and was once watching a Titan launch in the Range Safety TV
    control room.  The Titan lifted up until its midpoint was about
    even with the top of the gantry and then it laid over and flew parallel
    to the ground.  The camera that was tracking it had panned far enough
    that the pad was no longer in the picture before the Range Safety
    Officer blew it.  There is a large safety zone around launch pads
    that were always evacuated for a launch.  When they went out to
    recover the debris there were pieces of the missle within six feet
    of the boundry of the safety zone, but all was inside the zone...
    and not a penny's worth of damage to the Pad....That was a "cool"
    Range Safety Officer!!!
    

    re: .4--Wow!  I'd hate to be an RSO, and be faced with that kind
    of responsibility.  Stories like these will make people respect
    the safety perimiter!  I hope we have people like this RSO operating
    our ICBMs.
        John Sauter

    better then photo ch_2 news last night (6pm) had a special on the
    CCCP vs NASA etc but one interesting vidio footage was the actual
    vidio tape of the launch and malfunction of the Titan rocket, it
    was the first time I have seen other then still photos of the launch
    it had two views of the malfunctions one a close up then after that
    they played a wide angle view of the same launch
    jb
    

    I believe from my reading of AWST that it is not thought to be a
    trigger-happy RSO (necessarily).  The scenario is that one SRB blew
    up (possibly because of the destruct charge, but no info about what
    might have caused that).  The Titan and/or ground computers detected
    very quickly that thrust was wildly unbalanced and blew the remainder
    of the charges automatically.  The RSO punched out just to be sure
    shortly thereafter.
    
    Burns
    

        I caught a short clip on the network news last night about the
        Delta failure. I believe that a weather satellite, GEOS-7 was the
        lost payload. From the clip I saw, it appeared that the payload
        shroud may have failed, causing areodynamic breakup of the rest of
        the bird. It sounds a bit like what happened during the Skylab
        launch, when one of the solar pannels ripped off during launch.
        
        Those of you with cable channels that devote mre coverage to this,
        or Avation Leak subscriptions, please keep us informed. It makes
        me wonder what is really going on in the US Space program this
        year. Only one thing comes to mind, and I don't even want to
        consider such things (terrorism). 

    It appeared from the pictures that the main engine cut off before the
    rocket started to tumble.  The first thing I could see that looked
    wrong was a sudden lack of an orange glow from the rear of the rocket.
    As the commentary explained, without the main engine the rocket
    is not aerodynamically stable, so it started to tumble, and the
    unusual pressures caused it to break up.
        John Sauter

    re: .9
    That is the description that NASA is adhearing to at this time.
     They say that the main engine(s) shut down 'fast' like a shut down
    command was sent to the engines.  Since primary stability is from
    the gimbaling of the main engine(s), she started to tumble at 1400
    MPH which caused a break up starting with the nose.  The RSO simply
    finished the job.
    
    I have to wonder if the ship DID receive a command to shut down...
    
    jim
    

    What is going on here? Sabotage? This does not look good.
    
    I hope NASA finds the jinx soon and can get it out of the system.
    I want to see them start flying again!
    
    Did someone manage to build their own little remote destruct button
    or what? Is that at all possible?

    > Did someone manage to build their own little remote destruct button
    > or what? Is that at all possible?

    If one knows the numbers it would not be difficult to do.  The signal
    is two sequences of two audio tones each transmitted by FM modulation
    on a UHF RF carrier.  The difficult part is that FM receivers tend
    to lock out all but the strongest signal on or very near a frequency,
    and believe mey you would have to have a *very* strong transmitter
    to override the power of the real one.  Also a loss of RF carrier
    at the receiver for a very short time will result in an auto destruct.
    
    If the receiver in this bird failed for a short period of time (along
    with its backup failing too) that would do it.
    
    I watched CNN's coverage last night.  They had two separate views
    on - I did not clearly see a main engine failure before the missile
    veered to the right.  After if veered the payload cover clearly
    disintegrated (probably because of aerodynamic stress) before the
    destruct signal was given.
    

    From an article in The Boston Globe, Tuesday May 6 :
    
      << Although some people had wondered whether the shutdown
    	 may have been the result of sabotage, both Ross and Russell
    	 discounted that possibility, saying that any outside radio
    	 signal would have shown up in their records. An Air Force
    	 statement received yesterday said "no suspicious signals
    	 were received." >>

    Ross = Lawrence J. Ross, chairman of the investigating board.
    Russell = William Russell, NASA's manager of the Delta rocket program.

    							Bjorn

    More from the Boston Globe article referred to in .13:
    
    "...even before the board [NASA's] has had its first meeting - now
    set for Thursday - NASA's manager of the Delta rocket program, William
    Russell, said yesterday that 'it looks like a simple short circuit'
    caused the sudden engine shutdown that triggered the destruction
    of the $42 million rocket and its payload, a much-needed weather
    satellite.
    
    "The apparent short circuit showed up in data radiod back to the
    ground and analyzed over the weekend, Russell said.  The first 'spike'
    in a reading of electrical current in the rocket's first stage appeared
    just one second before the engine shutdown, but lasted less than
    one-hundredth of a second.
    
    "Then, less than a second later, another spike appeared, and was
    immediately followed by a shutdown of the motor.  Russell explained
    that the motor's valves are held open by relays that must have a
    constant supply of electricity.  As soon as the short circuit appeared,
    the engines would have automatically shut down."
    
    More...
    
    " 'We feel this is quite a significant finding,' Russell said, 'but
    we don't want to jump to conclusions.' He added that although the
    short circuit caused the failure, 'that just begins the investigation,
    because if that caused the failure, what caused that?'
    
    "He said it could be 'almost anything' such as 'faulty wiring, or
    something can kick [the wires] loose, or a piece of something can
    migrate to someplace it shouldn't be.'
    
    "Russell said that the launch team went through extensive testing
    to try to detect any such faults before the launch, including a
    test in which much higher than normal voltages are passed through
    the wiring so that if there are any weak points in the system they
    would fail in a test, rather than in flight."
    
    Interesting comments from the article...
    
    "The Delta itself is such a workhorse, I think no one would have
    taken this very seriously [if it hadn't been for the other recent
    failures]."  Astronomer Robert Jastrow, former director of NASA's
    Goddard Institute for Space Studies
    
    "I think there's a major disruption in the world launcher market.
     Its a major problem."   Douglas Heydon, head of Arianespace, Inc

    
    					Mike

        Sorry for the misleading comment in my first note. They didn't
        have any data when I heard about the failure, and I didn't get
        that clear a picture of the incident on the news. 

        At any rate, I understand that all of our satellite launch
        vehicles are now grounded. 

    re .15
    
    As far as the Boston Globe article goes, you understand right. 
    Everything is grounded.  Could someone post the essence of a more
    suitable report when available?  Newspapers tend to boil things
    down for mass consumption.
    
    						Mike

    re: all of the above...
    
    	Here we have the same technology as used in "defensive" weapons
    	(buried all over the world) failing with alarming (to put it
    	mildly) regularity. In this context, does anyone out there feel
    	safer with or without the "protection" offered by same?
    
    	On the other hand: maybe the political leaders of this world
    	will be all the more hesitant to "push the button".....
                     
    		         DATman (the heavens should be weapon-free!)
    	

    If 1000 missiles gets launched, each with a (say) 70% reliability,
    700 missiles will reach the target. The other 300, well it does not
    make me feel any better. Some will explode or crash near the launch
    site and contaminate the home country. Even if a nuclear warhead
    explodes without a nuclear reaction, it will still spread a lot of
    nasty stuff.
    
    Better not launch them at all.

    							Bjorn

    the short circuit duration was in the milliseconds and about
    150 amps, enougth to drop the battery voltage to 11 volts then
    the second spike happen it was longer in duration, I think in
    the order of 15 ms (from memory) and about the same current then
    loss of battery voltage  - most likly the short circuit open up
    the line
    jb
    

    An AP article in the Boston Globe (7/1) states that "...there is
    a possibility that NASA will get rid of some of the satellite backlog
    created by the shutdown of the shuttle program by launching some
    aboard the huge Titan 34D7 rockets the Air Force has ordered." 
    This was attributed to James Fletcher.
    
    Anyone have any details?  Is this the same Titan that blew up at
    Vandenburg?
    
    						Mike

    Not exactly. The Titan explosion was a Titan 34D. The 34D7 has larger
    solid strapons and can use the Centaur G-prime as an upper stage
    (this is the most powerful variant of the Centaur to date and was
    to be used as a shuttle upper stage). The 34D7 will have the same
    basic lift capability as the shuttle. The 34D7/Centaur G-prime will
    be the US' most powerful launcher in near future.
    
    BTW, AW&ST reported that the Titan failure appears to have been
    caused by fauly handling of one of the solid strapons rather than
    a design flaw.

    There are some other references to the Titan family in this conference.
    
    gary 

    The 34D7 would not be available for a Galileo launch before 1991,
    however.
    
    Burns
    

VNS TECHNOLOGY WATCH:                           [Mike Taylor, VNS Correspondent]
=====================                           [Nashua, NH, USA               ]

                                Titan Scare

    The Air Force was concerned its first Titan 4 had been damaged on
    the launch pad at Cape Canaveral when a quality control inspector
    accidentally dropped a large book. The inspector was atop the
    launch gantry when he dropped the manual, which fell down the side
    of the booster. An examination showed no damage. The Titan 4 is set
    to launch a secret payload in March.
    {AW&ST Feb 27, 1989}

  <><><><><><><>   VNS Edition : 1774      Monday 13-Mar-1989   <><><><><><><>

    Has anybody heard about a U.S. Air Force Titan 4 failure?
    
     I heard a quick comment on the radio, but there were no details.
    
    Thanks,
    
    	Gregg

    ???
    
    The very brief news reports I saw this morning said that yesterday's
    Titan 4 launch was a success.
    
    gary

    
    re .25
    
    Correct. It was a success. Launched a ~160 million dollar satellite.
    
    /prc

    ok, bet I heard "lost" when they said "launched".
    
    	Thanks,
    		Gregg