Rusty wrote:
On 19 Oct 2005 15:06:32 -0700, "Ed Kyle" wrote:

The last Titan 4B (B-26) flew today from Vandenberg AFB SLC 3E.
It was the 368th Titan launch since the first Titan 1 launch on
Feb 6, 1959. More than 500 Titans were manufactured all told.

Here is the final Titan record. This list includes failures
of all types, including many that did not involve the Titan
stages themselves.

Vehicle Launches Realzd Years
(Failures) Rate
=============================================== =
Titan 1 ICBM 67(23) .66 1959-1965
Titan 2 ICBM 81(16) .81 1962-1976
Titan 2 Gemini 12(0) 1.00 1964-1966
Titan 23G/(Star) 13(1) .92 1988-2003
Titan 3A 4(1) .75 1964-1965
Titan 3B Agena D 68(5) .93 1966-1987
Titan 3C 36(6) .83 1965-1982
Titan 3D 22(0) 1.00 1971-1982
Titan 3E Centaur 7(1) .86 1974-1977
Titan 34D TS/IUS 8(2) .75 1982-1989
Titan 34D 2.5 stg 7(1) .86 1983-1988
Titan 3 Commercial 4(1) .75 1990-1992
Titan 4A IUS 3(0) 1.00 1989-1994
Titan 4A 2.5 stg 10(1) .90 1990-1997
Titan 4A Centaur 9(1) .89 1994-1998
Titan 4B 2.5 stg 5(0) 1.00 1999-2005
Titan 4B IUS 5(1) .80 1997-2004
Titan 4B Centaur 7(1) .86 1997-2003
(ALL TITAN SPACE 219(22) .90)
(ALL TITAN 368(61) .83)
=============================================== =

- Ed Kyle

The stats don't include the Titan I that blew the silo out of the
ground at Vandenburg in 1960 or the Arkansas based Titan II that blew
the 9-mt warhead out of the ground in 1980.

But, launching parts of the missile don't count. ;-)

Rusty

Yep. Both involved fueled missiles, but neither were
being launched. The only similarity between the two
incidents were the really big holes they left in the
ground.

The 1960 explosion occurred at the end of a planned
wet dress rehearsal at a test silo site that was
built to test Titan silo design elements. The Titan I
was being lowered back down into its silo for unfueling
at the end of the test when the elevator carrying the
missile failed. This may have been the only large launch
vehicle to have been destroyed by an elevator
failure!

The 1980 explosion occurred after a technician
performing a repair dropped a socket that bounced
and punctured the first stage fuel tank. The
explosion, when it finally occurred several hours
later, was made extra-special by the fact that the
740-ton silo door that had been closed over the top
of the missile was blown sky-high (it landed in
a woods hundreds of yards away) followed closely by
the W-53 thermonuclear warhead that had been on top
of the missile ...

- Ed Kyle