Delta IV Heavy: NROL-71 (mission)


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Launch date: November 29, 2018
Launch time:TBA
PAD: SLC-6, Vandenberg AFB
Stage recovery: are you joking? 🙃

 

Payload: KH-11 #17 (Block V)

 

Yup, a KH-11 - the spy satellite Hubble is based on.

Edited by DocM
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I have a hunch that this is the one causing "issues" at Vandy, for the prior launch windows...reference SpaceX landing.

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  • 1 month later...

 

 

Live coverage: ULA’s heavy-lift rocket set for liftoff Saturday night in California

 

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ULA’s live video coverage of the Delta 4 launch will begin at 7:46 p.m. PST on Dec. 7 (10:46 p.m. EST; 0346 GMT).

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Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket with the National Reconnaissance Office’s NROL-71 payload. Text updates will appear automatically below. Follow us on Twitter.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/12/07/delta-382-mission-status-center/

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Photos: Delta 4-Heavy poised for launch with U.S. spy satellite

 

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A United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket stands 233 feet (71 meters) tall at Space Launch Complex-6 at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, ready for liftoff Saturday night carrying a top secret U.S. government spy satellite into orbit.

 

The triple-core rocket measures 53 feet (16 meters) wide with its three first stage boosters bolted together. Fully fueled for launch with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, the Delta 4-Heavy will weigh 1.6 million pounds. Its three first stage Aerojet Rocketdyne RS-68A main engines will produce 2.1 million pounds at full thrust.

 

Saturday’s launch is set for 8:15 p.m. PST (11:15 p.m. PST; 0415 GMT Sunday night) from the SLC-6 launch pad, a facility originally developed in the 1960s for the U.S. Air Force’s canceled Manned Orbiting Laboratory program, then modified as a West Coast launch site for the space shuttle, before those plans were scrapped.

 

Work to prepare the SLC-6 launch pad — with its fixed umbilical tower, mobile service tower and mobile assembly shelter structures — for the Delta 4 rocket began in 2000, and the first Delta 4 rocket launched from Vandenberg in 2006.

 

Saturday night’s mission is codenamed NROL-71 by the National Reconnaissance Office, which owns the U.S. government’s classified intelligence-gather satellites. The NRO has not released any information about the spacecraft aboard the Delta 4-Heavy, which can loft up to 51,950 pounds (23,560 kilograms) of payload mass to a 120-mile-high (200-kilometer) low Earth orbit inclined 90 degrees to the equator.

 

The Delta 4-Heavy is ULA’s biggest rocket, and the beefiest version of the Delta 4 rocket has launched 10 times to date. The NROL-71 mission will be the 11th flight of a Delta 4-Heavy, and the 38th mission overall for the Delta 4 family since November 2002.

lots of images at the site...a few are below...

https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/12/08/photos-delta-4-heavy-poised-for-launch-with-u-s-spy-satellite/

 

nrol71_mst_1.jpg

An overview of Space Launch Complex-6 showing the mobile assembly shelter (left) and the mobile service tower (right) covering the Delta 4-Heavy rocket. Credit: Alex Polimeni/Spaceflight Now

 

 

nrol71_mst_2.jpg

The mobile service tower retracts into position for launch during a countdown Dec. 7. Credit: Alex Polimeni/Spaceflight Now

 

 

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The mobile service tower retracts into position for launch during a countdown Dec. 7. Credit: United Launch Alliance

 

 

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The mobile service tower retracts into position for launch during a countdown Dec. 7. Credit: United Launch Alliance

 

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The mobile service tower retracts into position for launch during a countdown Dec. 8. Credit: United Launch Alliance

 

 

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The mobile service tower retracts into position for launch during a countdown Dec. 8. Credit: United Launch Alliance

 

 

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2 minutes ago, Unobscured Vision said:

Everything on-track so far according to comms.

Readiness poll.

I never bothered to notice...on NROL launches...there must have been 75 people on desks.....that's like one person per telemetry bit....

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1 minute ago, Unobscured Vision said:

HOLD

while it's getting toasty below....had me wondering

 

They are doing a reset...must have been something simple...

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Woof ... that's a hell of a time to have something go wrong -- T-0:07 ... they were in full startup.

 

Resetting to T-4:00. Looks like they're gonna try again. Purging the chambers and clearing out whatever it was that tripped the abort.

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2 minutes ago, Unobscured Vision said:

Yep, that'll be a scrub then.

Yeah, they're scrubbing. Bringing up heaters, purging, safing ordinance, etc. That's the only time they'd do that.

That's what I thought...could be a few days out now...

De-tanking...they are done.

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