Saturday, ULA is set to launch an earth observation satellite for NASA from Vandenberg, Calif. Liftoff is set for 8:46 - 11:20 am Eastern. Watch it HERE or on NASA TV

This is a sad day for me because it is the very last Delta II rocket, my all-time favorite launch vehicle. Tracing its roots back to the 1950s Thor rocket, the Delta family is one of the most reliable and useful launch vehicles ever. Saturday's launch will mark the 100th straight success, for example. The Delta II is also - by far - the prettiest rocket, with its teal center body and white boosters and nose fairing, it is simply stunning to see. I was lucky enough to be the launch commentator for more than a dozen Delta launches, so saying goodbye to this old workhorse is heartbreaking for me.

For more on the Delta rocket's proud history, read THIS or the very well done WIKI

Farewell, old friend.

hope they come up with something as good or better

My money would be on a new vehicle....which we probably have, but don't want to reveal for national security purposes...

That tinfoil a bit tight today?

We have new rockets, with more coming. All but one by commercial builders. Even the NASA one is built by commercial contractors, and there's nothing spy secret about it.

Space vehicles are a wee bit hard to hide, you know. Damn things are bigger than a bottle rocket. As in 12-15 feet in diameter and 160 feet tall. The upcoming ones are three times that size. Literally as big as a skyscraper building.

...nope....do you really think we'd put all of our satellites at risk without a ways/means of repairing or replacing them other than to rely on Russian rockets and the ISS???

What do you suppose we're gonna use for our new "SPACE FORCE"???

New rockets and commercial builders are only the shiny ball used for distraction....

Rocky, my read on it falls under the heading of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." The Delta was a workhorse and try as they might there was no quantum leap available. The bureaucracy, profoundly frustrated, finally said something like "I know, we'll just shut it down and they'll have to come up with something better, right?"

I note the B52 is still flying..........

ol werner von braun helped get it all going. it's kind of amazing actually. we were fortunate to attract his talent.

lot's of reports of black op satellites out there. i have no clue if that's true.

Heck yes, they are! go BUFF!

SpaceX, Orbital, and ULA are the way we put all our satellites up, commercial AND government. Both SpaceX and ULA are developing follow-on booster systems. Blue Origin is developing an orbital cargo carrier, and there are several smaller companies now or soon able to put up small satellites. If required, we could launch payloads on European, Indian, or Japanese boosters.

Would it surprise me to learn there are military rockets in development? No. But they'd be like every other military system - built by a commercial contractor.

The Space Force isn't going to be about astronauts. It's going to be satellite-based systems mostly for observation and communications. Really high-flying drones, in other words. Which we already have, but under the control of both the AF and Navy. My take on the Space Force is that it will consolidate control of those systems under one roof.

I say good riddance.

It costs NASA $10,000 per pound to put stuff into low earth orbit. That's right. $80,000 for a gallon of water. I'm no fan of Elon Musk but SpaceX has lowered this cost by 80% already by developing a reusable rocket. The Space Shuttle was supposed to do this but it was a dismal failure, actually costing more to launch payloads than the older throw-away rockets.

NASA has overall been pretty incompetent since the Apollo program of the 1960s. They are presently developing a big rocket called Orion, sort of an extension of the old Saturn 5 that launched Neil Armstrong to the moon. The problem is there is no good mission for Orion. So they've thought up a sometimes-manned station to be put in lunar orbit. They're trying to find some reason to put it there! It's a big welfare program to keep a lot of bureaucrats pushing paper in Houston.

The things that NASA does very well are the unmanned scientific missions. These are usually small self-contained projects with highly-motivated people.

Manned space flight in general, and the ISS in particular, is also a solution looking for a problem. The Trump administration has decided to end ISS funding in 2024.

Rocky, I'm sure this is classified, but do you think the "Space Force" would include satellites with weapon systems on them?

I would be amazed if it didn't. Probably would consist of capability to eliminate a potential enemy's communications and reconnaissance satellites. China actually tested such a system a number of years ago, blowing up one of their own defunct satellites. The problem with that is it made a lot of space debris, hazardous to other satellites for years. Better to disable rather than destroy. There are ways to do that.

The Air Force has been launching a small "space plane," sort of an unmanned miniature space shuttle orbiter, for the last several years. It stays in orbit for months and then returns. Its missions are totally classified.

Thanks, I just wanted to what you guys thought about that. I remember back when Regan was pushing for the "Star Wars Project".

According to international agreement, there are not supposed to be any weapons in space. But it is strongly suspected that China and perhaps Russia have already cheated on that. I have no knowledge of anything like that on our side. Not being a Democrat politician, I wouldn't admit or discuss it even if I did know.

Indy, the Delta II has nothing whatever to do with NASA except that it sometimes carried NASA payloads for hire.

Honestly, weaponizing space is about as stupid as using nukes to advance policy. The long term downside just runs off the chart. Can you imagine what zapping a few good size satellites would do to create ultra high muzzle velocity space junk that would put EVERYTHING in space at random risk of destruction?
There will be a time when mankind figures out how to lift into orbit at a reasonable cost. And it will be done in a systematic manner, with ordered orbits and other means of making sure the space junk stays in formation until it is either returned to earth for reuse, or burnt on re-entry. But it would be a shame if the first priority is to put up giant Hoover screens to catch all the crap we blew up.

your point is well taken. sometimes in our quest for logic, we forget all about practical logic. it's a paradox or dilemma. look at all the waste in the ocean. we've decided to ban drinking straws for goodness sakes.

the heavens are awash with space junk. usually non iron, i'm thinking so a magnet couldn't be used to collect the menagerie of stuff capable of downing high-end satellites.

india, japan, china, russia, us, everybody's got their own ideas. not much cooperation in sight. well some, thanks to the usa, russia agreements.

Was an article in the news yesterday just on that subject... direct and indirect use of space or land based weapons to take out other country's satellites by creating massive shot particles. Pointing out the U.S. heavy reliance on satellite information to fight wars,. possibly other country's too. Either way basically would leave a path or evidence as to the assaulting nation eventually leading to world war.

Would be an idiotic move for any nation to secretly base a weapons system in space!


Phil

As long as there are people who crave power over others, it's idiotic NOT to have "AT A MINIMUM" a leg up on those who'd wish us harm....

Although we should consider keeping space junk free going forward, I think the probability of what you're implying is insignificantly low. First off, the sheer surface area around the exoatmosphere at any given altitude is enormous compared to the size of any junk in space. Then, you have to consider that both items would have to be at the same altitude to collide. It would be like shooting a bullet in a rural county area in a random direction and accidentally hitting a man 4 miles away center mass.

Theres kind of a big dif between an escaped round and space junk, Bro Blue.
Imagine if every round we fired past the backstop just kept on going three feet off the ground (same altitude, right) until it hits something. That's what happens in orbit, it comes around, and around again and around again. Not a question of if, but when, and how big be the bang?

Imagine if that round contained 100,000 ball bearings, and after exploding taking out said satellite they just kept going maintaining orbits in all directions taking out anything they came into contact with... big shot shells.


Phil.

Float on up and do some checking. I'll hold the string tied to your big toe.

You make some good points, Gus.

What happened to the space ladder project?

https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/space-ladder.91371/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator

Live coverage coming up. Launching in a few minutes at 9:02 Eastern.

Beautiful launch to end an era with the Delta's 100th straight success.

Thanks Rocky for posting this. I always enjoy these launches.

That one was bittersweet for me, obviously. I love that bird and I'll miss it a lot.

But it well and truly marks the end of the first generation of space launchers. It went from a Model T to a Model A, and there are simply no payloads any more that need just a Model A delivery truck. The fact that it was in active service for half a century is astounding, really.

It may have been a Model A, but we have made some bad choices since then.

First we were going to put everything up on the Shuttle. Nixon thought it would save money and stopped building Saturn Vs to pay for to develop the Shuttle. The Shuttle was a remarkable machine, but it cost too much to fly.

The Air Force kept flying Atlas, Delta and Titan. These were reasonably priced when we were building hundreds or thousands of the missile they were based on, but by the 70's the ballistic missiles were all solid rocket motors sitting alert in silos. It was costing the Air Force a lot to keep three production lines open for a handful of launches a year. By the early 90's it looked like a large commercial market for constellations of satellites was developing. The Air Force thought they could get the big aerospace firms to carry the cost of developing new vehicles. This was probably a good plan, but the large launch market didn't develop in the time frame expected, and the aerospace firms made some poor choices. Boeing thought they could save money with a low tech engine that relied on hydrogen fuel to get high performance. They invested big in a new factory in Alabama, but the flight rate to cover the cost never materialized, and the hydrogen fueled vehicle was expensive to manufacture. Lockheed Martin got performance with a high tech Russian engine and kerosene fuel. Choosing a Russian engine seems boneheaded, but Pratt & Whitney planned to build a manufacturing line in the United States. When the flight rate didn't materialize Pratt chose not to invest in the new production line leaving Lockheed Martin stuck with the Russian engine.

In parallel NASA tried to go really high tech with a single stage to orbit program that encountered development problems and never got to production.

Fortunately, Elon Musk invested in a 1950's technology engine and evolved it to a reusable first stage. He may have saved some cost with modern manufacturing technology, but the biggest savings is probably the fact that he is not running a big aerospace firm with the high overhead typical of a traditional government contractor. He is probably also pricing on what he thinks he can get to on cost some day, not what it is actually costing him today. this gets his flight rate up which hastens the day he wil get his cost low enough to actually make money.

Lessons learned, don't stop building what works till the replacement is available, and develop incrementally. We got to Saturn V by way of I and Ib.

All true. Today, the launch market is finally huge - and growing. Growing in numbers as well as size of payload. With some communications satellites topping 30,000 pounds, the need for huge boosters is certainly there. Arianespace of Europe uses their incredibly reliable Ariane 5 hydrogen-powered booster to launch two commsats at a time, and is designing the even larger Ariane 6.

But so is the market for smaller, cheaper satellites that take advantage of miniaturization and single-purpose design - and the boosters to launch them. Witness Rocket Lab of California and New Zealand and their new rocket that puts 300 pound payloads into low orbit, and the milk crate-sized satellites it carries.

Then there are the military uses, which are (ahem) exploding. Commsats, GPS, spy sats, ship trackers, realtime observation sats, and who knows what else. All need boosters to get there.

This is a cool thread, though I have to agree seeing a part of ones misspent youth go away is always a bit melancholy. Have you considered buying one of the model versions as a bit of decor? It would make a sharp bit of gear for the den, I'd wager.

100 straight successes, eh?

Back around 1970 they'd launched about 110 Thor Deltas total and all but five or six were successes. When Hughes Aircraft Company designed the first truly successful commercial communications satellite, they worked like mad to make sure they could launch it on the Delta. Earlier satellites had required the Atlas Centaur, which was terribly unreliable in comparison.

I know. I was there.

BTW: Do you happen to know what the thrust was of the later Delta main engine? Back in the day it was 150,000 pounds, no strap on solids then.

in today's liberal controlled world? fat chance of that SAM....

if it is better, it will come from the Russians or the Chinese... the one's who are willing to make the sacrifices our nation USE to make 50 and 60 years ago for the space program.

Rocketscientist:

Don't blame Nixon for putting all our eggs in the Space Shuttle basket. It wasn't his fault that the shuttle didn't do what the NASA engineers had said it would do.

The Air Force could see disaster coming and pulled out of the program long before the Challenger disaster. Sad because their Shuttle launch pad at Vandenberg (for polar orbits) was abandoned. $4 billion down the drain. There were other compromises as well. For instance the Shuttle payload bay was sized for their spy satellites.

Incidentally the Hubble Space telescope is a modified spy satellite. If you know the diameter of its primary mirror (94 inches), you can calculate what it can resolve from any altitude. From 300 miles it can see a license plate but can't read the numbers.

The Shuttle's two worst design flaws, in my opinion (despite costing far more to build and maintain than had been promised) were (a) the only manned spacecraft with NO escape mechanism for the crew, and (b) solid rocket motors on a manned craft in the first place. Once lit, they cannot be throttled and cannot even be turned off until they run out of fuel.

Finally, SpaceX did not just return to 1950s technology. Their greatest innovation was a device like the one in the center of a garden hose nozzle, which lets the thrust be easily throttled. This allows them to land in one piece. Secondly, they use one turbine pump for both fuel and oxidizer. there are probably others.

Indy, the last version of the RS-27 engine put out 200,000 lbs of thrust, not throttlable. It is also a single-start engine so it can't be relit once it shuts down.

Rocky, the only complaint we had about the Delta in 1970 was that the third stage was not quite precise enough to insert our satellite properly into the circular 22,300 mile orbit. It got close but then we had to use on-board thrust for the final adjustments. If memory serves correctly, the third stage of the Delta was a small solid fuel rocket. Later versions, as you know, used larger and better upper stages. Our orbital insertion thrust was provided by a pressurized gas bottle.

Yup. Third stage was probably a Star 36 from Thiokol. As you say, performance with a solid can be close to quite close, but not exact.

Lastly, in case anyone else cares...here's the answer to "Why is it blue?"

DELTA BLUE