Delta-IV Heavy First Flight Status & Delta-IV Growth Options

According to the launch schedule at:

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/tracking/index.html the first flight
of the Delta-IV Heavy has slipped to "Mid October".

I went surfing to see if I could find out any details on why the
flight slipped, but couldn't find much. I did find a "Delta-IV Heavy
First Flight" page at:

http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/...y/sitemap.html

One of the PDFs linked from this site is this little gem:

http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/...th_options.pdf

Its very similar to slide 7 of:

http://www.spacecongress.org/2004/Panel-4/2Collins.pdf, which was
presented at the 2004 Space Congress, but adds a few details - and in
fact answers some points that were raised in the "Delta 4 : heavier
and bigger" thread on here a couple of months ago.

(see http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=e... .196.105.134 for the beginning of the thread )

Simply put, the RS-68B is indeed an upgraded version of the RS68,
with the RS-68 Regen being a RS-68 with a regenerative nozzle.

'Dens' was indeed Cryo Propellant Densification. Al-li is
Aliminium Lithium Lightweight material.

One thing I did find interesting is that Boeing are at least looking
at upto 6.5M payload fairings with pad mods.

The RS-800 seems to be a paper engine at present (Althugh, I guess they
know how powerfull they want/need it to be)

The AUS referenced would appear to be a similar spec to the MB-60,
which according to http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/...opul/mb60.html
should be avaliable 'now'.


Iain