Atlas Consecutive Success Claim

Said Mark Albrecht, president of International Launch
Services after the successful 2/5/04 launch of AMC-10
by Atlas IIAS AC-165: "Sixty-nine out of 69 launches
since 1993 of all Atlas configurations -- a record that
is absolutely unmatched in the launch business. The
Atlas team is the gold standard of commercial space
launch."

O.K. Correct as carefully parsed (Arianespace has not
had all of its Ariane configurations succeed that many
consecutive times), but it is fair to point out that
Ariane 4 succeeded in its final 74 attempts, that
Tsyklon 2 has a record of 90 consecutive successes
dating back to 1973, and that this was only the 27th
consecutive Atlas IIAS success and the 60th consecutive
success of the Atlas II-series.

- Ed Kyle

(ed kyle) wrote in message om...
Said Mark Albrecht, president of International Launch
Services after the successful 2/5/04 launch of AMC-10
by Atlas IIAS AC-165: "Sixty-nine out of 69 launches
since 1993 of all Atlas configurations -- a record that
is absolutely unmatched in the launch business. The
Atlas team is the gold standard of commercial space
launch."

O.K. Correct as carefully parsed (Arianespace has not
had all of its Ariane configurations succeed that many
consecutive times), but it is fair to point out that
Ariane 4 succeeded in its final 74 attempts, that
Tsyklon 2 has a record of 90 consecutive successes
dating back to 1973, and that this was only the 27th
consecutive Atlas IIAS success and the 60th consecutive
success of the Atlas II-series.

- Ed Kyle

And another thing. ILS said that AC-165 was the 580th
Altas. They are including three Atlas Vs here, which had
little in common with the original Atlas, as well as four
Atlas IIIs, which has a different powerplant than the
original Atlas. So, for the purists out there the total
is 573 Atlas launches, plus 7 other things called Atlas.

- Ed Kyle

"ed kyle" wrote in message
om...
(ed kyle) wrote in message
om...
Said Mark Albrecht, president of International Launch
Services after the successful 2/5/04 launch of AMC-10
by Atlas IIAS AC-165: "Sixty-nine out of 69 launches
since 1993 of all Atlas configurations -- a record that
is absolutely unmatched in the launch business. The
Atlas team is the gold standard of commercial space
launch."

O.K. Correct as carefully parsed (Arianespace has not
had all of its Ariane configurations succeed that many
consecutive times), but it is fair to point out that
Ariane 4 succeeded in its final 74 attempts, that
Tsyklon 2 has a record of 90 consecutive successes
dating back to 1973, and that this was only the 27th
consecutive Atlas IIAS success and the 60th consecutive
success of the Atlas II-series.

- Ed Kyle

And another thing. ILS said that AC-165 was the 580th
Altas. They are including three Atlas Vs here, which had
little in common with the original Atlas, as well as four
Atlas IIIs, which has a different powerplant than the
original Atlas. So, for the purists out there the total
is 573 Atlas launches, plus 7 other things called Atlas.

- Ed Kyle

I vaguely recal losing an X15 vs Atlas arguement with Jim Davis
in which he mentioned over a thousand Atlas launchings. This
included missle development and training.

johnhare wrote:

I vaguely recal losing an X15 vs Atlas arguement with Jim Davis
in which he mentioned over a thousand Atlas launchings. This
included missle development and training.

Your memory is playing you false about the numbers, John.

Here is the text of our previous exchange:

John Hare wrote:

The number of Atlas flights flown by any given time always
exceeded the number of X-15 flights flown by the same time.

I had no idea that the Atlas had flown 199+ times total,
and certainly was unaware of that track record before
the X-15 retirement.

Here's the cumulative box sco

Year Atlas X-15
1957 3 0
1958 17 0
1959 40 4
1960 74 31
1961 111 46
1962 158 76
1963 200 97
1964 233 124
1965 270 156
1966 317 176
1967 349 191
1968 370 199
------------------------
1996 538 199

Glenn's flight was the 117th Atlas launch.

On another note entirely, the latest Journal of Propulsion and
Power (Vol. 17, No. 2, Mar-Apr 2001) has an interesting paper on
airturborockets:

"Comparison of Methods for Calculating Turbine Work in the Air
Turborocket", K. L. Christensen.

Jim Davis

"Jim Davis" wrote in message
. 1.17...
johnhare wrote:

I vaguely recal losing an X15 vs Atlas arguement with Jim Davis
in which he mentioned over a thousand Atlas launchings. This
included missle development and training.

Your memory is playing you false about the numbers, John.

Here is the text of our previous exchange:

John Hare wrote:

The number of Atlas flights flown by any given time always
exceeded the number of X-15 flights flown by the same time.

I had no idea that the Atlas had flown 199+ times total,
and certainly was unaware of that track record before
the X-15 retirement.

Here's the cumulative box sco

Year Atlas X-15
1957 3 0
1958 17 0
1959 40 4
1960 74 31
1961 111 46
1962 158 76
1963 200 97
1964 233 124
1965 270 156
1966 317 176
1967 349 191
1968 370 199
------------------------
1996 538 199

I plead alzhiemers or maybe I'll just deny the previous conversation
or something. Sorry about that all.