NROL-37: Orion 9 (TBD) - Delta IV-H - Canaveral SLC-37B - 11.06.2016 - 17:51 UTC

[Salo]

http://spaceflightnow.com/2016/03/08/delta-4-heavy-goes-to-launch-pad-for-national-security-flight/

Delta 4-Heavy goes to launch pad for national security flight       
Posted on March 8, 2016 by Justin Ray              


File photos of Delta 4-Heavy rollout and erection. Photos by ULA
 
CAPE CANAVERAL — Rolling toward a mid-May deployment of a clandestine spy satellite, United Launch Alliance's triple-body Delta 4-Heavy rocket moved from its Cape Canaveral assembly building to pad 37B yesterday.
The 170-foot-long rocket, riding horizontal aboard a 36-wheel, diesel-powered transporter, emerged from the Horizontal Integration Facility hangar and took the brief trip down the road and up the pad's ramp, a distance of three-quarters of a mile.
Crews erected the bright orange and white rocket vertically onto the launch table this morning for the 26th Delta 4 launch from the same Cape Canaveral complex used for unmanned Apollo test flights in the 1960s.
Liftoff is planned for May 12 during an unclassified period of 1 to 5 p.m. EDT (1700-2100 GMT) atop 2.1 million pounds of thrust generated by the three Aerojet Rocketdyne RS-68A main engines.
The Heavy is America's biggest unmanned rocket currently in service, capable of lofting the largest and heftiest cargos for the nation, including eavesdropping surveillance satellites deposited directly into geosynchronous orbit 22,300 miles high and school bus-sized imaging observatories placed in polar orbits.
The mammoth vehicle is created by taking three Common Booster Cores — the liquid hydrogen-fueled motor that forms a Delta 4-Medium's first stage — and strapping them together to form a triple-barrel rocket, and then adding an upper stage.
The payload for the upcoming flight, known as NROL-37, will be brought to the pad and hoisted atop the rocket in the final weeks before launch, giving the launcher a total height of 235 feet.
The name, purpose and orbital destination for the spacecraft are not publicly announced by its owner — the National Reconnaissance Office. The NRO is the government agency responsible for the design and operation of the country's intelligence satellite fleet.
In addition to the ULA rocket production and launch teams, the Air Force is providing mission assurance oversight for the NROL-37 launch and the final "go" for liftoff will be given by the NRO mission director.
"Travel to and through space is unforgiving — whether it is the launch vehicle or the spacecraft," Dr. Walt Lauderdale, technical director of the EELV generation and operations division within the Air Force's Launch Systems Enterprise Directorate at the Space and Missile Systems Center in Los Angeles, told reporters last month.
"Past performance is no guarantee of future success. Despite our enviable string of successful launches, we never forget that we are only as good as our last mission."
The Air Force's role includes rigorous engineering discipline during the rocket's manufacturing, launch campaign and software development, pedigree reviews of the hardware, launch vehicle verification tasks and review boards to disposition issues from past flights.
"Space launch is an inherently risky enterprise and we must never become complacent. Many thousands of things have to go right during a launch and we don't get a second chance once the rocket lifts off," Lauderdale said.
Delta 4 rockets are in the midst of performing back-to-back missions for the NRO. A Delta 4-Medium+ booster successfully carried a radar-imaging spy satellite into a retrograde orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Feb. 10.
"(An) incredibly dedicated team representing NRO and its industry partners launched a vital national security satellite into the Pacific sky," Col. Clint Hunt, director of the NRO's Office of Space Launch, said in a Feb. 10 press release.
"I stand in awe of their skill and dedication and express my profound gratitude to each individual who had a part in this achievement."
The Air Force is planning at least five additional flights on Delta 4-Heavy rockets through 2022, carrying NRO payloads from both Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg. NASA also intends to use the booster in 2018 for its Solar Probe Plus science mission to the Sun.
Despite intentions to phase out single-core Delta 4-Medium rockets in three years, ULA has pledged to the NRO it will keep the Heavy viable and flying as long as the government needs and wants the vehicle. The company will replace the rocket in its product offering by high-performance configurations of the future Vulcan launcher system.

Previous Delta 4-Heavy launches. Photos by Gene Blevins, Ben Cooper and ULA
 
NROL-37 will be the ninth launch of a Delta 4-Heavy rocket and sixth carrying the largest NRO satellites.
Delta 310: Demo flight (Dec. 21, 2004) Cape
 Delta 329: DSP 23 (Nov. 10, 2007) Cape
 Delta 337: NROL-26 (Jan. 17, 2009) Cape
 Delta 351: NROL-32 (Nov. 21, 2010) Cape
 Delta 352: NROL-49 (Jan. 20, 2011) Vandenberg
 Delta 360: NROL-15 (June 29, 2012) Cape
 Delta 364: NROL-65 (Aug. 28, 2013) Vandenberg
 Delta 369: Orion EFT 1 (Dec. 5, 2014) Cape
"For those members of our industry and government launch vehicle team, it is our collective responsibility to keep the rocket — which is the only known natural predator of a satellite — at bay," Lauderdale quipped.

Our Delta archive.

[тавот]

Давненько  Царь-Ракета  не летала.

[Старый]

Опять у нрола маленький номер.

[che wi]

[che wi]

Пишут о переносе на 3 июня.

[Старый]

У меня патч ассоциируется с лапами и крыльями охватывающими земной шар.

[ВВК]

Это фото сюда тоже пойдет

che wi пишет: 
за компанию и 37-й комплекс с готовящейся Дельтой4хэви 

[che wi]

United Launch Alliance (ULA) successfully conducted a Wet Dress Rehearsal (WDR) on Thursday for its Delta IV- Heavy tasked with the launch of the NROL-37 spacecraft. Meanwhile, the company is continuing to evaluate the underperformance issue with its most recent Atlas V mission, while agreements were signed for its future rocket, the Vulcan – specifically related to the payload fairings.

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2016/04/delta-iv-h-wdr-ula-immediate-long-term-goals/

[Salo]

http://spaceflightnow.com/2016/04/15/delta-4-heavy-passes-countdown-rehearsal-for-upcoming-nro-launch/

Delta 4-Heavy passes countdown rehearsal for upcoming NRO launch             
 April 15, 2016 Justin Ray  

CAPE CANAVERAL — Successfully put through its countdown paces in a critical pre-flight test Thursday, America's largest rocket currently in service moved closer to a June launch for the U.S. intelligence community.
Liftoff of the United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy on the classified NROL-37 mission is targeted for June 4.
Known as a Wet Dress Rehearsal, the WDR rolled back the mobile gantry Thursday morning at Cape Canaveral's Complex 37B and performed a full countdown to a simulated liftoff time later in the day.
All eight cryogenic tanks aboard the rocket — four liquid hydrogen and four liquid oxygen in the three Common Booster Cores and the upper stage — were filled to check systems both on the vehicle and ground support equipment.
WDRs are classic milestones for U.S. rockets to uncover any issues before the real launch day arrives.
The payload for NROL-37 is a top-secret spy satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office, the secretive government agency responsible for the design and operation of the country's surveillance spacecraft.
The NROL-37 craft is thought to be an eavesdropping platform that the Delta 4-Heavy will deliver directly into a circular geosynchronous orbit of 22,300 miles.
The satellite will be brought to the launch pad in about a month for mating to the Heavy, completing assembly of the 235-foot-tall rocket.
Preparations for the flight have not been impacted by the Atlas first stage performance trouble experienced during the March 22 flight. The Delta 4-Heavy systems were cleared of any similar concern.
The Delta 4-Heavy was rolled out to the pad on March 7 for what was planned to be a May 12 launch. The mission, however, slipped to June 4 due to an undisclosed payload readiness issue.
NROL-37 will be the ninth launch of a Delta 4-Heavy rocket and sixth carrying the largest NRO satellites.
See earlier Delta 374 coverage.

[G.K.]

Старый пишет:
У меня патч ассоциируется с лапами и крыльями охватывающими земной шар.

Скучные какие-то патчи пошли. Ни тебе звездочек, ни драконов. Даже на стену вешать не хочется, не говоря о том, что бы думать, что хотел сказать автор.

[Salo]

http://www.floridatoday.com/story/tech/science/space/2016/05/19/ula-plans-june-launches-delta-atlas-rockets/84590286/

ULA plans June launches of Delta Heavy, Atlas V rockets
James Dean, FLORIDA TODAY 1:13 p.m. EDT May 19, 2016

United Launch Alliance is preparing to launch two of its most powerful rockets from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station next month.
A heavy-lift version of the company's Delta IV rocket is fully assembled for a planned June 4 blastoff from Launch Complex 37 with a classified intelligence mission.
The National Reconnaissance Office payload last Friday was attached to the rocket featuring three core boosters that will generate about 2.1 million pounds of thrust at liftoff.
The launch — the seventh by a Delta IV Heavy — is scheduled between 1:30 p.m. and 6:35 p.m. A more precise window will be released closer to the launch date.
The big rocket was last seen in late 2014 launching NASA's prototype Orion crew exploration capsule on a first, unmanned test flight.

[che wi]

The NROL-37 payload is mated to a Delta IV Heavy rocket inside the Mobile Service Tower or MST at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Space Launch Complex-37.

[тавот]

Царь Ракета !

[Salo]

Пуск ушёл вправо из-за проблем с ПН.
http://spaceflightnow.com/2016/05/27/delta-4-heavy-launch-postponed-by-unspecified-payload-issue/

Delta 4-Heavy launch postponed by unspecified payload issue             
 May 27, 2016 Justin Ray
 
NROL-37 mission poster. Credit: United Launch Alliance

CAPE CANAVERAL — Payload readiness has delayed next weekend's planned Delta 4-Heavy rocket launch for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office.
Liftoff had been targeted for the afternoon of June 4. A new launch date has not yet been established.
The NRO is the secretive government agency responsible for the design and operation of the country's fleet of spy satellites. The identity of the payload launching aboard the Heavy is classified.
The launch is known as NROL-37.
"The NROL-37 spacecraft and launch vehicle are secure on Space Launch Complex 37," officials said in a statement.
The United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket is America's largest operational booster flying today. It carries critical payloads for the U.S. government.
The vehicle is created by taking three Common Booster Cores — the liquid hydrogen-fueled motor that forms a Delta 4-Medium's first stage — and strapping them together to form a triple-barrel rocket, and then adding a cryogenic upper stage.
The vehicle stands 235 feet tall, weighs 1.6 million pounds fully fueled and will unleash 2.1 million pounds of thrust from the three RS-68A main engines at launch.
Here's a look at some stats about the mission. This will be:

[/li]
• The 374th Delta rocket launch since 1960
• The 32nd Delta 4 rocket mission since 2002
• The 9th Heavy configuration to fly
• The 48-49-50th main engine from RS-68 family used
• The 6-7-8th RS-68A main engine flown
• The 468th production RL10 engine to be launched
• The 34th RL10B-2 engine launched
• The 26th Delta 4 rocket launch from Cape Canaveral
• The 7th Heavy launch from Cape Canaveral
• The 10th classified Delta 4 for the NRO
• The 6th Heavy for the NRO
• The 94th Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle flight
• The 107th United Launch Alliance mission since 2006
• The 25th Delta 4 under the ULA banner
• The 4th ULA launch this year
• The 2nd launch of the Delta family in 2016
  

[silentpom]

эпидемия какая-то

[Salo]

Пуск назнгачен на 9 июня в 20:30-01:30 ДМВ.

[Salo]

James Dean Подлинная учетная запись ‏@flatoday_jdean  
Delta IV Heavy targeting 1:59pm ET Thursday launch of #NROL37. Full window not released for classified mission.
  8:45 - 6 июн. 2016 г.  

9 июня в 20:59 ДМВ.

[Salo]

James Dean Подлинная учетная запись ‏@flatoday_jdean
Weather 40% "go" for Thurs. launch of Delta IV Heavy, #NROL37: http://1.usa.gov/1Um2VvX  . 80% "go" on Sat. (corrected for 48-hr delay)

[Salo]

http://spaceflightnow.com/2016/06/07/surveillance-satellite-launching-thursday-atop-delta-4-heavy-rocket/

Surveillance satellite launching Thursday atop Delta 4-Heavy rocket             
 June 7, 2016 Justin Ray

National Reconnaissance Office mission logo for this launch. Credit: NRO

CAPE CANAVERAL — One of the largest satellites in the world will launch aboard America's biggest operational booster Thursday, riding that power to a listening post 22,300 miles above the planet for its clandestine eavesdropping mission, all indications suggest.
A United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket will fly fr om Cape Canaveral's Complex 37 at 1:59 p.m. EDT (1759 GMT). Although the duration of the day's usable launch window has not been revealed, officials previously said liftoff would occur by 6:30 p.m. EDT (2230 GMT).
Weather forecasters say there is a risk of showers and thunderstorms, dropping the odds of acceptable launch conditions to 40 percent due to anvil clouds, cumulus clouds and lightning.
If the launch is scrubbed on Thursday, the next try would come on Saturday afternoon. Weather improves to 80 percent favorable then.
This rocket was chosen to conduct the high-priority national security launch because it can deliver the payload directly into geosynchronous orbit, requiring three burns by the upper stage and operation after a long coast to reach the destination about seven hours into flight.
The Delta 4-Heavy is capable of delivering 14,900 pounds of payload into a circular geosynchronous orbit, the most of any rocket flying today. The vehicle's maximum operation time is eight hours.
Most satellites headed to 22,300 miles up use a circuitous route to get there after being deployed fr om their launch vehicles in highly elliptical transfer orbits. The spacecraft must use onboard propulsion to systematically circularize the orbit.
But the payload flying on this Delta 4-Heavy will rely upon the rocket to do all the boosting, initially reaching a low-altitude parking orbit, then stepping to the egg-shaped transfer orbit and finally firing a third time several hours later to circularize the altitude without the satellite having to do it independently.
 Illustration of different orbits. Credit: ULA
Geosynchronous orbit is used by spacecraft — such as television broadcast birds, weather observatories and reconnaissance satellites — because that is wh ere they match Earth's rotation and stay locked over one area of the globe.
The spacecraft launching Thursday comes from the National Reconnaissance Office, the secretive government agency responsible for the country's spy satellites and overhead surveillance for the intelligence community.
The NRO was created in 1961 and its existence was admitted publicly for the first time in 1992. The first NRO launch to be acknowledged in advance occurred in 1996.
This launch is known as NROL-37.
The NRO has flown various types of communications-interceptors since the dawn of the space age, and analysts say it is virtually certain this Delta 4-Heavy is hauling another.
"I believe the payload is the seventh in the series of what we call Mentor spacecraft, a.k.a. Advanced Orion, which gather signals intelligence from inclined geosynchronous orbits. They are among the largest satellites ever deployed," said Ted Molczan, a respected sky-watcher who keeps tabs on orbiting spacecraft.
A former NRO director called this type of satellite the largest in the world, and for good reason. It will unfurl a gigantic antenna to overhear enemy communications and aid U.S. intelligence.
"The satellite likely consists of sensitive radio receivers and an antenna generally believed to span up to 100 meters (328 feet) to gather electronic intelligence for the National Security Agency," Molczan said.
 Examples of previous Mentor launches aboard Titan 4B and Delta 4-Heavy rockets. Credit: Lockheed Martin and ULA
Observers think the mesh antenna's diameter is the size of a football field, comparable to the International Space Station's width. That explains why satellite-tracking hobbyists say these Mentor craft are "by far the brightest" in geosynchronous orbit and seen from the ground, outshining conventional craft.
Although NRO satellites are secretive by nature, the spacecraft are visible by just looking up. Molczan is a member of a hobbyist group that routinely finds and watches the craft while monitoring the skies with precision.
Experts believe Northrop Grumman builds these spacecraft and Harris Corp. makes the unfurlable antenna systems.
It is not known in advance wh ere in the geosynchronous belt the new satellite will be positioned or what part of the globe it will cover.
"The upcoming launch may replace one of the older spacecraft in the series, or augment the fleet by occupying a new location in geosynchronous orbit," Molczan said.
Previous Mentor satellites were launched by Titan 4 rockets from Cape Canaveral in 1995, 1998 and 2003, plus Delta 4-Heavy flights in 2009, 2010 and 2012.
The lineage can be traced to the two Magnum satellites trucked to orbit aboard the space shuttle Discovery during the STS-51C mission in 1985 and STS-33 in 1989.
 
Credit: ULA

United Launch Alliance's Delta 4-Heavy is America's biggest unmanned rocket currently in service, capable of lofting the largest and heftiest cargos. Its most recent mission launched NASA's Orion capsule on the Exploration Flight Test in 2014.
The Heavy is created by taking three Common Booster Cores and strapping them together to form a triple-barrel rocket, and then adding an upper stage.
The vehicle stands 235 feet tall, is 53 feet wide, weighs 1.6 million pounds fully fueled and will unleash 2.1 million pounds of thrust at launch.
The rocket comes off the pad powered by three Aerojet Rocketdyne RS-68A engines, one apiece on the Common Booster Cores. The throttleable engine burns liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen to produce 702,000 pounds of thrust each.
The Port and Starboard liquid rocket boosters stand more than 150 feet tall and the Center Core is over 175 feet with interstage permanently attached. Each booster measures 16.7 feet in diameter and is covered in orange insulating foam.
The cryogenic upper stage also burns liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen to power its single Aerojet Rocketdyne RL10B-2 engine for 24,750 pounds of thrust. It features a cone-shaped carbon-carbon extendible nozzle that is 7 feet in diameter.
The stage carries 60,000 pounds of propellant and can operate for nearly 19 minutes in all. It features a larger diameter liquid hydrogen tank and a lengthened liquid oxygen tank from the stage used by the lower-power Delta 4-Medium rockets.
This will be the 374th Delta rocket launch since 1960, the 32nd Delta 4 since debuting in 2002 and the 9th Heavy.
 
Previous 9 Delta 4 launches for NRO. Photos by Air Force, ULA, Ben Cooper and Gene Blevins

The Delta 4 vehicle has flown 9 times for the National Reconnaissance Office, five of which were Heavy launches.
Delta 317: NROL-22 on Medium+ (June 27, 2006) Trumpet F/O eavesdropping
 Delta 337: NROL-26 on Heavy (Jan. 17, 2009) Mentor 4 eavesdropping
 Delta 351: NROL-32 on Heavy (Nov. 21, 2010) Mentor 5 eavesdropping
 Delta 352: NROL-49 on Heavy (Jan. 20, 2011) KH-11 exquisite imaging
 Delta 353: NROL-27 on Medium+ (March 11, 2011) Quasar data relay
 Delta 359: NROL-25 on Medium+ (April 3, 2012) Topaz 2 radar imaging
 Delta 360: NROL-15 on Heavy (June 29, 2012) Mentor 6 eavesdropping
 Delta 364: NROL-65 on Heavy (Aug. 28, 2013) KH-11 exquisite imaging
 Delta 373: NROL-45 on Medium+ (Feb. 10, 2016) Topaz 4 radar imaging
United Launch Alliance intends to retire the single-stick Medium configurations of the Delta 4 by early 2019. But the Heavy vehicle will continue to serve the national security niche market into the 2020s.
Technicians at the ULA factory in Decatur, Alabama, will build and stockpile the cores for several Heavy vehicles before the Medium's retirement. Making the rockets now, then allowing the entire assembly line to shut down and simply storing the Heavy vehicles is the economic way to go, officials said.

The government is deciding exactly how many Heavy rockets it will want ULA to stockpile. There's at least 6 missions — five for the NRO and one science probe for NASA — baselined to fly on Delta 4-Heavy rockets through 2022.
2018
 Delta 4-Heavy with NASA's Solar Probe Plus (Cape Canaveral) *
 Delta 4-Heavy with NROL-71 (Vandenberg) *
2019
 Delta 4-Heavy with NROL-44 (Cape Canaveral)
2020
 Delta 4-Heavy with NROL-82 (Vandenberg)
2021
 Delta 4-Heavy with NROL-68 (Cape Canaveral)
2022
 Delta 4-Heavy with NROL-70 (Cape Canaveral)
* NASA and the Air Force have formally purchased their 2018 launches aboard Delta 4-Heavy rockets. Launch services for the other NRO flights have not yet been contracted.
ULA's future Vulcan-ACES vehicle will replace the capabilities of the Delta 4-Heavy that the company offers to the government.

[тавот]

Экологически идеально чистая ракета.