ULA’s Delta Heavy successfully launches spy satellite for NRO
ULA today has successfully launched a spy satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, using its Delta Heavy rocket, its largest rocket.
With this launch, ULA retires the Delta from any further launches from Vandenberg. Future California launches will use its as yet untested Vulcan rocket.
The leaders in the 2022 launch race:
42 SpaceX
38 China
12 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
6 ULA
American private enterprise now leads China 59 to 38 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 59 to 58. The 59 launches makes this the third most active launch year in American history, trailing only 1966 (70 launches) and 1965 (64 launches).
SpaceX has a Falcon 9 launch of 52 Starlink satellites scheduled very shortly, so these numbers will hopefully go up again before the day is out.
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ULA today has successfully launched a spy satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, using its Delta Heavy rocket, its largest rocket.
With this launch, ULA retires the Delta from any further launches from Vandenberg. Future California launches will use its as yet untested Vulcan rocket.
The leaders in the 2022 launch race:
42 SpaceX
38 China
12 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
6 ULA
American private enterprise now leads China 59 to 38 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 59 to 58. The 59 launches makes this the third most active launch year in American history, trailing only 1966 (70 launches) and 1965 (64 launches).
SpaceX has a Falcon 9 launch of 52 Starlink satellites scheduled very shortly, so these numbers will hopefully go up again before the day is out.
Readers!
Every February I run a fund-raising drive during my birthday month. This year I celebrate my 72nd birthday, and hope and plan to continue writing and posting on Behind the Black for as long as I am able.
I hope my readers will support this effort. As I did in my November fund-raising drive, I am offering autographed copies of my books for large donations. Donate $250 and you can have a choice of the hardback of either Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8 or Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space. Donate $200 and you can get an autographed paperback copy of either. IMPORTANT! If you donate enough to get a book, please email me separately to tell me which book you want and the address to mail it to.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
I had a casual friend who had an admin job that had nothing to do with rockets, but it took him to the factory in Long Beach where they built the Delta IV series. Naturally they offered to show him one of the rockets as sort of a welcoming gesture, but as he was on a tight schedule he almost didn’t bother. Like I said not a CLOSE friend!
Anyway, to be a good sport he agreed to walk out to the factory… and as long as I knew him after that, he never quit talking about it!
He was not only floored by the size of the booster itself, but then they told him to imagine two more, one on each side of it, in the Heavy configuration. He thought they were pulling his leg until they showed him the user guide!
Long Beach?
http://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/m-6250
The SSME clad RS-68s had 90% fewer parts than RS-25…and was to go on Ares V at first…
My memory of what he said may be flawed! As I remember he said he was at the former Douglas factory in Long Beach, Ca.
I have a question… Why was the Delta never man rated? It seems to have been a reliable work horse for many years..
Lee S: I can’t directly answer your question. However, I do know this. The Delta family of rockets had become ULA’s most very expensive rockets to build in recent years, much more expensive than the Atlas-5 or the proposed Vulcan. Thus, Boeing had no interest in using it for Starliner, and SpaceX had its own much cheaper rocket.
Congress meanwhile mandated NASA build its own rocket, SLS, cobbled from shuttle equipment.
There were thus no customers for Delta. I suspect this is why it was never man-rated.
Thanks Bob…. I guess that combo makes nothing but sense… Especially when you throw that long shadow of SLS into the mix…
Lee,
To answer your question about the Delta-IV Heavy’s engine, the RS-68, and to point out Jeff Wright’s post, I am sure the reason why all those other parts had to be added was to man-rate the RS-25 for the shuttle. The shuttle’s RS-25 had a little bit more thrust than the RS-68, and like Jeff said, that engine was considered for the five engine first stage of the canceled predecessor of the SLS, the Ares-V.