Thread: Delta II
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Old 09-25-2018, 02:30 PM
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LeeR LeeR is offline
Retired with Way Too Many Kits
 
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Colorado
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tbzep
The last of 155 Delta II flights successfully deployed its payload from Vandenberg Saturday, Sept. 15. With 100 successful launches in a row and a nearly unblemished record since it was introduced in 1989, the Delta II was a long time workhorse for our access to space. There were only 2 launches that weren't 100% successful. One was a 2nd stage ignition failure, and the other was the spectacular 1997 failure 13 seconds into flight that cratered a nearby parking lot and cost the local auto insurance companies a lot of bonuses. The cause was a ruptured SRB, so the Delta II itself wasn't at fault.

I really like the last photo at the bottom of the article.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/09/...-in-california/


Spectacular pictures. You’re right, that last one is impressive.

I’ve always been a fan of night launches. I was at a software user group meeting in Orlando during the Shuttle era. We found out that the shuttle launch was rescheduled for that week. I chartered 3 buses to take customers to this launch, a night launch. Fortunately, it was at the end of the week, and didn’t really interrupt the user group schedule. But nobody would have cared. We boarded these buses around 2am, and I recall that the launch was around 4am. One of the bus drivers had done these for years, and parked on a jetty just across a narrow inlet from the pad. Unbelievable experience for me, and about 200 other people. Many were from outside the US and never thought they would ever see a rocket launch.

This was my favorite business expense ever! But a bit of a risk — I didn’t get it pre-approved, I just charged it on my credit card and submitted on my expense report.
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Projects: Semroc Saturn 1B, Ken Foss Designs Mini Satellite Interceptor
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Launch-Ready: Farside-X, Maxi Honest John, Super Scamp
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