Final DSP Satellite Lifted to Orbit on First Operational Delta IV Heavy Lift

BySteeljawscribe

 

The last of the 23-satellite Defense Support Program (DSP) satellites was lifted to orbit this past weekend on the newest heavy lift rocket in the US inventory. The Delta IV was developed as part of the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program to replace the previous workhorse of US military and commercial heavy lift, the Titan-family. Consisting of three Common Booster Cores — the liquid hydrogen-fueled motor that forms a Delta 4-Medium’s first stage, that are then strapped together to form a three-wide booster rocket, a powerful upper stage is added to complete the setup. Each 15-story booster core features a Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne RS-68 main engine that generates 650,000 pounds of thrust (1.9 million pounds of thrust total – by comparison, each of the Saturn V’s first stage F-1 engines produced 1.5M lbs of thrust for a total of 7.5M lbs of thrust) while burning super-cold liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants. The cryogenic upper stage has the Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne RL10B-2 powerplant. Together it constitutes the most powerful liquid-fueled rocket in the world.

The DSP satellite placed on orbit will become part of a system of satellites that has provided early warning of missile launches from around the world since 1970. It will also form the bridge to the next generation of early-warning satellites, the Space-Based Infra-Red System (SBIRS) which will include systems on highly elliptical as well as geo-synchronous orbits and will work with another system, the Space-based Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS) which will operate in low earth orbit. Together this new system will provide even more robust coverage than what is presently provided by DSP alone.

Similar Posts

|

The Shenlong Spaceplane: Hyperventilating Hypersonics or Real Threat?

BySteeljawscribe

"At a minimum, Washington should delay the planned 2010 retirement of the Space Shuttle until a new space plane can replace it, as a way to retain a deterring potential military capability. China’s unwillingness to comment on its military space plans, coupled with the Shenlong space plane, confirms its larger aversion to military transparency. The…

|

Lunar Reflections

BySteeljawscribe

And so here we are, on the cusp of the 40th anniversary of the first landing on the Moon – where have we come in those forty years?  As a star-crossed (literally) youth in 1969, my imagination was fired by the likes of the space program.  From Sheppard’s sub-orbital flight that I recall watching from…

4 October 1957: The Shot Heard (and Seen) Around the World

BySteeljawscribe

The space race begins with the launch of Sputnik (Russian for traveler) by an indigenously developed and modified R-7 ICBM (NATO Codename SS-6 Sapwood).  R-7 Семёрка/SS-6 SAPWOOD   Design work began at OKB-1 (later S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia) in Kaliningrad (now Korolev) and other divisions in 1953 with the requirement for a…