United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket lifts Orion to EFT-1 - Video

NASA’s inaugural Orion spaceship has set sail on a two-orbit, four-hour shakedown cruise around the Earth, leaving port atop a United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket and its incandescent power at 7:05 a.m. EST today.

The 46,000-pound craft rocketed into its preliminary orbit, setting the stage for a coast period and another engine firing by the Delta 4-Heavy rocket later this morning to put Orion on a trajectory to travel 15 times higher than the International Space Station before re-entering over the Pacific Ocean and splashing down 600 miles southwest of San Diego at 11:23 a.m. EST (1623 GMT).

“This is going to be a vehicle that could fly for us for 30 years, potentially, and this is the first one, the first tailnumber coming out the chute. This is like the forefather of this great fleet of vehicles that’s going to be coming online,” said astronaut Rex Walheim, part of the Orion development team and member of the final space shuttle crew.

The Orion Spacecraft in development. This image shows its heat shield.

Credit: NASA

“This is the opening of a new era. It is the opening of the Orion program. It’s really exciting because it’s that transition we have been waiting for. It’s been about three-and-a-half years since I last flew on the space shuttle (and) closed the program down with the anticipation these new programs would be coming along. Now here we are. It’s really exciting to see the first flight of Orion,” Walheim said.

This mission is known as Exploration Flight Test No. 1 (EFT 1) to gather real-life data on the performance of Orion’s avionics, software, radiation protection, heat shield, parachutes and recovery systems.



“EFT 1 is a compilation of the riskiest events that we are going to see when we fly people. So this test flight is a great opportunity to fly those and see them in operation. Some of these events are difficult or even impossible to test on the ground. EFT 1 gives us a chance to put all those together,” said Mark Geyer, Orion program manager.

“Using the Delta 4 heavy gets us 15 times higher than space station and about 84 percent of lunar entry velocity,” he said.

“So we start seeing that different physics, we start seeing those very high temperatures, high velocities, so that’s one of the big things we’ll test.

“And as we go through the Van Allen belts, we’re going to see this radiation effect on the computers. We’re going to measure, with dosimeters, the environment but we’re also going to see how the avionics behave, which is actually more important, and how do our mitigations work?”

As for re-entry, “we have a lot of parachutes because we need to slow the vehicle down from about 300 mph to 20 mph, so we do that in stages,” he said.

“We’ve done a lot of drop tests out in Yuma (Arizona) and looked at failure cases, but until you’ve actually dropped it in the exact air density and speed you’re going to see, we’re certainly going to learn stuff from that.”

NASA Orion's rocket ready for critical December test flight

The high fidelity rehearsal included fully powering up the booster and loading the tanks with cryogenic fuel and oxidizer, liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen

The huge rocket that will blast NASA's first Orion spacecraft into orbit is ready to Rock 'n' Roll on a critical two orbit test flight scheduled for December.

In addition, Orion is so big and heavy that she's not launching on just any old standard rocket.

To blast the uncrewed Orion to orbit on its maiden mission requires the most powerful booster on Planet Earth, namely the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket.

Liftoff of the state-of-the-art Orion spacecraft on the unmanned Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) mission is slated for December 4, 2014 from Space Launch Complex 37 (SLC-37) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

Just days ago, the launch team successfully completed a countdown and wet dress rehearsal fueling test on the rocket itself – minus Orion – at launch complex 37.

The high fidelity rehearsal included fully powering up the booster and loading the tanks with cryogenic fuel and oxidizer, liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen.

ULA technicians and engineers practiced the countdown on Nov. 5 which included fueling the core stages of the Delta IV Heavy rocket.

"Working in control rooms at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, countdown operators followed the same steps they will take on launch day. The simulation also allowed controllers to evaluate the fuel loading and draining systems on the complex rocket before the Orion spacecraft is placed atop the launcher," said NASA.

The next key mission milestone is attachment of the completed Orion vehicle stack on top of the rocket.

Today's scheduled rollout of Orion to the launch pad for hoisting atop the rocket was scrubbed due to poor weather.

The triple barreled Delta IV Heavy booster became the world's (US) most powerful rocket upon the retirement of NASA's Space Shuttle program in 2011 and is the only rocket sufficiently powerful to launch the Orion EFT-1 spacecraft.

The first stage of the mammoth Delta IV Heavy generates some 2 million pounds of liftoff thrust.

"The team has worked extremely hard to ensure this vehicle is processed with the utmost attention to detail and focus on mission success," according to Tony Taliancich, ULA's director of East Coast Launch Operations.

ULA Delta 4-Heavy booster is lifted atop Cape Canaveral's Complex 37 launch pad

The ULA booster rocket that will launch NASA's next-generation Orion space capsule on a two-orbit, four-hour shakedown cruise in December has been rolled to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral.

The Delta 4-Heavy booster is lifted atop Cape Canaveral's Complex 37 launch pad Tuesday morning. Credit: William Harwood/CBS News

United Launch Alliance's triple-body Delta 4-Heavy rocket was moved from its assembly building to pad 37B Tuesday night.

Crews erected the 170-foot-long rocket vertically Tuesday morning.

NASA's Orion capsule will make Exploration Flight Test 1 on Dec. 4, flying to an altitude of 3,600 miles, about 15 times higher than the International Space Station orbit, and slamming back into the atmosphere to simulate re-entry speeds astronauts will face returning from deep space.

It is an unmanned flight test for the spacecraft systems, software, heat-shield, parachutes and recovery gear in preparation for one day carrying crews to an asteroid or Mars.

United Launch Alliance's Delta 4-Heavy is America's biggest unmanned rocket currently in service, capable of lofting the largest and heftiest cargos.

The mammoth vehicle is created by taking three Common Booster Cores, the liquid hydrogen-fueled motor that forms a Delta 4-Medium's first stage, and strapping them together to form a triple-barrel rocket, and then adding an upper stage.

Riding horizontal aboard a 36-wheel, diesel-powered transporter, the bright orange and white rocket emerged from the Horizontal Integration Facility hangar Tuesday night and took the brief trip down the road and up the pad's ramp to the Florida spaceport's Complex 37.

Technicians then prepared the rocket to be raised vertically. The cradle-like pallets upon which the rocket is resting will be tied down to the Fixed Pad Erector on the pad's surface. The diesel-powered transporter used to drive the rocket to the pad was expected to disengage from the pallets and pull away.

The erector system, with its two hydraulic pistons, lifted the rocket upright, putting the vehicle on the pad's launch table. After the rocket was set, technicians planned to unhook the booster from the pallets.

The erector, along with the pallets, was to be lowered back to the ground. The transporter then returns to the erector to retrieve the pallets for reuse on another mission.

Orion will be attached to the rocket at the launch pad in November.

ULA Delta II rocket Launch: OCO-2 Heads to Orbit

A United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket launches with the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) satellite onboard from Space Launch Complex 2 at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

OCO-2 will measure the global distribution of carbon dioxide, the leading human-produced greenhouse gas driving changes in Earth’s climate.

Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

SpaceX sues US Air Force over allocation of contracts

SpaceX on Friday filed suit against the US Air Force for awarding billions of dollars to a single company for national security launches, and said the contracts might even violate sanctions against Russia.

The US military spends billions yearly with United Launch Alliance (ULA), a joint operation of aerospace giants Boeing and Lockheed Martin, to launch government satellites.

The Atlas V and Delta IV rockets are powered by Russian engines, which has raised concern among some lawmakers that such reliance is dangerous in a time of escalating tensions over Ukraine.

"This is not right," SpaceX CEO Elon Musk told reporters, describing the policy of "uncompeted procurement" by the Air Force's Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program.

"SpaceX has decided to file suit and protest the Air Force EELV block buy," Musk said.

Musk claims his aerospace company SpaceX was unfairly shut out of a contract for rocket launches he says he can do for less money.

The process "essentially blocks companies like SpaceX from competing for national security launches," said Musk at a press conference in the US capital.

The suit was filed in the US Court of Federal Claims, he added. Musk said ULA rockets cost four times the amount of SpaceX's. "To add insult to the wound, the primary engine is made in Russia," said Musk.

"The person who heads Russian space activities is (deputy prime minister) Dmitry Rogozin, who is on the sanctions list. So it seems pretty strange, like, you know, how is it that we are sending hundreds of millions of US taxpayer money at a time when Russia is in the process of invading Ukraine?" Musk asked.

"It would be hard to imagine some way in which Dmitry Rogozin is not benefiting personally from the dollars that are being sent there," he added.

"On the surface of it is seems there is a good probability of some sanctions violation."

"This is not SpaceX protesting and saying these launches should be awarded to us. We are just protesting and saying these launches should be competed," Musk said.

Musk alleged the United Launch Alliance contract is costing taxpayers "billions of dollars, for no reason" because SpaceX could provide launch rockets more inexpensively.

SpaceX has a $1.6 billion contract to launch a dozen unmanned cargo ships to the International Space Station, delivering equipment and supplies.

NASA Orion EFT-1: First Test Flight of Orion Space Capsule delayed until December

Artist's concept of a ULA Delta 4 Heavy rocket standing poised on the pad ready to launch NASA's Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1).

The first flight of Orion is now slated for December 2014.

Credit: NASA

he countdown to the maiden launch of Orion, a NASA space capsule designed to take astronauts out into the solar system, is now three months longer than previously planned.

The space agency on Friday (March 14) announced that it was retargeting the first flight of its Orion spacecraft from autumn to just before winter this year.

"The Orion team continues to work toward completing the spacecraft to be ready for a launch in [the] September [to] October [period]," NASA stated on its website.

"However, the initial timeframe for the launch of the Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) has shifted ... to early December to support allowing more opportunities for launches this year."



The EFT-1 mission will fly the Orion capsule to an altitude of approximately 3,600 miles (5,800 kilometers) above the Earth's surface, more than 15 times farther out than where the International Space Station (ISS) orbits.

By flying out to those distances, NASA will be able to judge how Orion performs in, and returns from, deep-space journeys.

Flying atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta 4 Heavy rocket, EFT-1 precedes the first flight of the Orion capsule on its intended launch vehicle, NASA's new Space Launch System (SLS), targeted for 2017.

By 2021, NASA plans to send astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft on a mission to the vicinity of the moon to rendezvous with a redirected asteroid, before ultimately launching a crew to Mars in the 2030s.

Antitrust probe of Lockheed-Boeing rocket venture

The Orbital Sciences Corporation Antares rocket is seen as it launches from Pad-0A of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at the NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia

Credit: Nasa / Reuters

U.S. regulators have opened a probe into whether a Lockheed-Boeing joint venture that launches U.S. government satellites into space has flouted antitrust laws.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is investigating whether United Launch Alliance (ULA), a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co, violated federal antitrust laws by "monopolizsing" or restraining competition through an exclusivity agreement with the maker of the engines used in its rockets, according to a FTC document obtained by Reuters on Wednesday.

RD Amross, a joint venture of Russia's NPO Energomash and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, a unit of United Technologies Corp, provides RD-180 engines for ULA rockets.

Industry sources say ULA is preventing RD Amross from selling the engines to other rocket makers, including Orbital Sciences Corp, which is trying to break into the lucrative market for government rocket launches.

Jessica Rye

Jessica Rye, spokeswoman for ULA, confirmed the investigation and said the company was cooperating with antitrust regulators.

"ULA's contracts to purchase the RD-180 engine are lawful, pro-competitive and designed to provide the most reliable launch vehicle possible for critical U.S. government missions," Rye said.

"Because this is ongoing investigation, it would be inappropriate for us to comment on specifics."

Pratt & Whitney spokesman Jay DeFrank said his company is aware of the investigation and cooperating with U.S. regulators.

The FTC declined comment.

Barry Beneski, a spokesman for Orbital Sciences, said the company had been contacted by the FTC about the probe.

"We have been contacted by the FTC about their investigation. However we can't be more specific than that," Beneski said.

"In general, the company supports efforts to ensure there is an open and fair competitive environment in the market for launch services."

Lockheed and Boeing formed the joint venture in 2006 after years of competing for contracts under the Air Force's Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program, which provides launch services for large military, intelligence and NASA satellites.

The companies won U.S. government's approval for the venture by arguing that there was not enough demand for heavy lift rocket launch services to support two competitors since the commercial demand they had expected had failed to materialize for such large rockets.

The U.S. Air Force, frustrated about the high cost of EELV rocket launches, has in recent years tried to infuse more competition into the launch service market.

ULA Atlas 5 Rocket Launches SBIRS GEO-2 Satellite

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket blasts off from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station carrying the second Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) GEO-2 satellite for the U.S. Air Force at 5:21 p.m. EDT on March 19, 2013.

Credit: Pat Corkery, United Launch Alliance

Landsat Data Continuity Mission and ULA Atlas-V Launcher: Pre-launch Checks

The United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket with the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) spacecraft onboard is seen on Sunday, Feb. 10, 2013 at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.

The Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) mission is a collaboration between NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey that will continue the Landsat program's 40-year data record of monitoring the Earth's landscapes from space. 

The spacecraft is scheduled to launch Feb. 11.

Photo Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls