Delta IV Heavy Failure

As of midday 12/22/04, many of the better news outlets
have figured out that the inaugural Delta IV Heavy mission
failed, but others haven't. For some reason, the Australian
press is more accurate than the US media on this so far.

Spaceflightnow says:
"lower-than-expected performance ... caused the mission
to fall short of its intended orbit. Nonetheless,
Boeing officials called the demonstration flight a
success."

FloridaToday says:
"The Boeing Co. today said Tuesday's flight of the new
Delta 4 Heavy rocket was a success even though it failed
to deliver its payload to the right orbit."

Jonathan McDowell "http://www.planet4589.org/jsr.html" says:
"I am inclined to characterize the launch as a failure
or near-failure ..."

spacetoday.net says"
"Delta 4 Heavy launch comes up short"

orbireport.com says:
"Delta 4 Heavy Undershoots on Maiden Flight"

Space.com (way behind the curve) says:
"New Delta 4 Rocket Launches Succesfully in Flight Debut"

CNN.com (also out of touch on this story) says:
"The successful launch was a critical milestone for the
Delta 4 Heavy ..."

Chicagotribune.com says:
"The successful launch was a milestone for the Delta 4 Heavy ..."

newscientist.com says:
"Heavy-lift rocket's debut a partial success"

MSNBC.com says:
"Delta rocket falls short of orbit goal...
Test launch a success, but demonstration payload placed
at lower orbit"

decauturdaily.com says:
"According to [Phil] Marshall [general manager of Boeing's
Delta IV facility], the launch was successful. Each stage
of the flight went as planned."

rockymountainnews.com says:
"Two CU satellites may be lost in space" (it says they were
placed into GTO by the Delta IV Heavy instead of the
planned LEO!)

local6news.com (a Florida TV station) says:
"Delta 4 Leaves Satellite In Wrong Orbit ...
NASA officials said Wednesday that a Delta 4
satellite is in the wrong orbit ..."

Boeing says:
"Boeing Delta IV Heavy Achieves Major Test Objectives in
First Flight"

www.physorg.com says:
"Boeing Delta IV Heavy Launch Successful"

Sydney Morning Herald (www.smh.com.au) says:
"First flight of Delta 4 rocket falls short"

Herald Sun (www.heraldsun.news.com.au) says:
"Delta comes a cropper"

Kansas City Star (kansascity.com) says:
"First flight of Delta 4 rocket falls short"

foxnews.com says:
"Martha Stewart Calls for Prison Sentencing Reform"
(I kid you not. I couldn't find a Delta IV story
at Foxnews).

- Ed Kyle

Dismissing this flight of a new vehicle configuration as
a failure is a bit heavy-handed. It implies the design is
flawed, and that's not obviously the case.

The early shutdown of the boosters is the most interesting
part, and it'll be interesting to know why that happened
and what the necessary fixes will be.

I'm not worried about the underperformance; there are several
ways that could be compensated for without significant redesign,
at least one of which is already planned for: the higher
thrust MB-60 upper stage engine upgrade.

I would like to see Boeing address the overall operational
costs of flying Delta IV. That may not be so easy for a
big organization. I'm sure Lockheed-Martin is waiting in the
wings, licking its chops in anticipation; they'll likely trot
out information about the Atlas V Heavy and growth variants.
Competition is a good thing.

--Damon

"Ed Kyle" wrote in news:1103752829.676723.29670
@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:

The Delta IV Heavy mission succeeded in achieving some of its
vehicle testing goals, but it failed to perform what would
normally be its primary goal - placing a payload into a
specified orbit.

I could go along with that; I'm concerned that an extremely promising
new launch vehicle is going to be dismissed before demonstrating
its considerable future potential. Unlike Delta III, Delta IV is
far from being maxed-out old technology.

Meanwhile, we'll have to wait to learn the analysis; no doubt
other glitches turned up in the course of the flight.

--Damon

Damon Hill wrote:

... we'll have to wait to learn the analysis; no doubt
other glitches turned up in the course of the flight.


After reviewing the launch video, I've noticed that the
CBC engines seemed to shut down almost immediately after
throttling down just before the 4-minute mark. The flight
plan called for the engines to gradually throttle down over
a five second period, then run at 58% thrust for nearly
10 more seconds before shutting down. The video seems to
show them throttling down and then suddenly shutting down.
The fact that this shut down seems to have coincided with
a substantial planned thrust transient event may or may
not be a coincidence, but I find it very interesting.

- Ed Kyle

"Ed Kyle" writes:

Damon Hill wrote:
Dismissing this flight of a new vehicle configuration as
a failure is a bit heavy-handed. It implies the design is
flawed, and that's not obviously the case.

[... quotes dictionary on success or failure ...]

The Delta IV Heavy mission succeeded in achieving some of its
vehicle testing goals, but it failed to perform what would
normally be its primary goal - placing a payload into a
specified orbit.

But putting the payload into a specified orbit is (presumably) NOT the
PRIMARY goal of a test flight. You can't call a flight a failure just
because it doesn't meet the goals of some other flight.

The goal of a test flight is to gain the confidence and understanding
so that you can be reasonably sure the system will do the right thing
when used 'for real'. One of the ways to gain this confidence is to
have the whole system work perfectly, and succeed in doing what you
intend to do in production flights. Clearly, this did not happen.
However, a test flight also succeeds if it uncovers what needs to be
done to the satisfaction of all concerned. This depends on lots of
factors - how well the problem is identified, the ease of the fixes,
how certain the fixes are to work, and so on. If the cause is clear,
and the fix obvious, this may well have been a fully successful test
flight.

So basically, we don't know yet whether the flight was a success or
a failure - if they got enough data to understand the problem, plan
the fix, and reassure the customer to the point where the next payload
is a real satellite, then it was mostly a success. If the cause or the fix
is not clear, or the customer demands another demo flight, then it was
mostly a failure.

But I think that until more is known, you declaring it a failure is just
as wrong as Boeing declaring it a success.

Incidently, even if this was a real mission, it might have succeeded.
Sea Launch had almost exactly the same problem on one of their launches -
the second stage shut down 54 sec early, leaving the satellite in an
orbit about 10,000 km too low. But the satellite was still able to reach
orbit on its own, with enough fuel left for its expected lifetime.
Not an ideal situation to be sure, but at the end, all the main mission
objectives were met (though with lower margins than desired, but that's
what margins are for.....)

Lou Scheffer

In article .com,
"Ed Kyle" wrote:


rockymountainnews.com says:
"Two CU satellites may be lost in space" (it says they were
placed into GTO by the Delta IV Heavy instead of the
planned LEO!)

There's a thought: maybe some planner believed that they *wanted* GTO?
That would be hilarious and easy to fix (but highly unlikely, eh).


foxnews.com says:
"Martha Stewart Calls for Prison Sentencing Reform"
(I kid you not. I couldn't find a Delta IV story
at Foxnews).

LOL!

In article ,
Damon Hill wrote:


I would like to see Boeing address the overall operational
costs of flying Delta IV. That may not be so easy for a
big organization.

Especially not easy after the thing has been designed and it's
production line has been built. There's no cost-reduction butter you
can spread on a product after it's gotten this far. Remember that
prideful press release about their "world's largest and flattest
concrete floor"? Among other things, anything that must be assembled on
what amounts to a giant optical bench is never going to be cheap.


I'm sure Lockheed-Martin is waiting in the
wings, licking its chops in anticipation; they'll likely trot
out information about the Atlas V Heavy and growth variants.
Competition is a good thing.

Amen.

Ed Kyle wrote:
As of midday 12/22/04, many of the better news outlets
have figured out that the inaugural Delta IV Heavy mission
failed, but others haven't.

Finally, on Thursday 12/23/04, the "Business Bible" spoke
authoritatively on this matter:

Wall Street Journal - 9:04 am ET (1404 GMT
"Boeing Rocket Fails in a Test"

- Ed Kyle

In article ,
Louis Scheffer wrote:
But putting the payload into a specified orbit is (presumably) NOT the
PRIMARY goal of a test flight.

However, it *is* the primary goal of a qualification flight, whose purpose
is to show that the system is completely ready for real payloads.

The USAF didn't insist on this preliminary flight because they thought
Boeing needed to gather more data. As seen by the customer, this was a
qualification flight, not a test flight... and it failed. Not too bad a
failure -- a real payload *might* have been able to recover -- but
definitely a failure.
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |

On 22 Dec 2004 12:24:43 -0800, "Ed Kyle" wrote:

As of midday 12/22/04, many of the better news outlets
have figured out that the inaugural Delta IV Heavy mission
failed, but others haven't. For some reason, the Australian
press is more accurate than the US media on this so far.

I'm willing to bet that too much of the SOFI was burned away at
ignition and they had greater boil-off during ascent than expected,
hence running out of prop ten seconds early.

Those scorched black LH2 tanks just *don't* look right. If that
happened to a Shuttle at liftoff, NASA launch controllers would be
keeling over in cardiac arrest.

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/delta/...launch/03.html

I think they need to add a lot more of those "sparklers" around the
pad to get rid of the free hydrogen before engine ignition.

Brian