Military satellite joins Delta 4 rocket at Cape Canaveral – Spaceflight Now

The addition of a US Air Force communications satellite limited the assembly of a 66-meter (66-meter) United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket to Cape Canaveral that was due to take off on the evening of March 13.

The 10th Air Force Global Broadband SATCOM Communications Satellite joined the Delta 4 rocket at the launch pad of the Cape Canaveral 37 complex on Tuesday morning after an overnight trip from the Astrotech spacecraft processing plant , in Titusville, in the surrounding area.

Arriving from its plant in southern California late last year, Boeing's telecommunication satellite was powered by maneuvering thrusters at the Astrotech plant and then encapsulated in the rocket's payload shroud. Delta 4, wearing the official badge of the mission.

Cocooned inside the 14-foot (14-meter) payload protective fairing on a special carrier, the WGS 10 satellite left the Astrotech facilities Monday night under a security escort to get to the airport. Launch area.

The convoy included equipment to provide air conditioning to the satellite while traveling to the platform.

Complex 37 cranes lifted the spacecraft and payload fairing into the mobile gantry of the platform, and the workers carefully lowered the satellite onto the second stage of the rocket. The teams planned to spend the next few weeks verifying the mechanical and electrical connections between the Delta 4 launcher and the WGS 10 satellite, conducting readiness reviews and applying the countdown procedures.

The launch of the Delta 4 rocket is scheduled for March 13, at the opening of the launch window at 18:58. HAE (2258 GMT). The launch window extends until 9:04 pm HAE (0104 GMT).

Stimulated by a RS-68A main engine fueled with Aerojet Rocketdyne's hydrogen-fueled hydrogen and four robust rocket-powered rocket engines built by Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems, the Delta 4 rocket will be headed easterly from Cape Canaveral to place the WGS 10 spacecraft in an elliptical geostationary transfer, a crossing point on the satellite's route to an operating station more than 22,000 miles (nearly 36,000 kilometers) above the equator.

The WGS 10 will join a fleet of military satellites to carry classified and unclassified data and video, supporting US and allied forces around the world. Featuring a digital channelizer, WGS 10 will relay high-speed data communications in X and Ka bands during a mission of at least 14 years.

The nine previous WGS satellites were all launched on ULA rockets – the first two on Atlas 5 in 2007 and 2009 and the next seven on Delta 4.

The global SATCOM broadband fleet is the highest capacity satellite communications network in the US Department of Defense.

The March 13 launch will be the second mission of the year for ULA, the second Delta 4 flight of the year and the third launch from Florida's Space Coast to date in 2019.

The mission will constitute the 39th flight of a Delta 4 rocket since the launchers family launch in 2002, and the eighth launch of a Delta 4 flying in '5.4' configuration with a 5m fairing diameter (16 feet) in diameter. and four solid boosters.

The first and second stages of the Delta 4, covered with orange insulating foam, came out of ULA's horizontal integration device and went to the launch pad on January 24, and then hoisted up vertically. The four solid boosters, 1.5 meters in diameter and 16 meters long, were added around the base of the Delta 4 launcher at the beginning of February.

The upcoming flight will be the penultimate launch of a Delta 4 rocket with a unique first-stage core, a medium lift variant, ULA, plans to retire later this year as part of the strategy of the to streamline operations and reduce costs.

Since the Delta 4 is more expensive than the Atlas 5 family of ULA rockets, the company decided in 2014 to phase out most Delta 4 configurations.

ULA, a 50/50 joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, will continue to operate the Delta 4-Heavy until the early 2020s. The Delta 4-Heavy is comprised of three liquid-fueled first-stage cores between them to carry heavier payloads in the space.

Meanwhile, ULA is developing a new rocket called Vulcan, whose inaugural flight is scheduled for 2021. The Vulcan launcher will eventually completely replace the Atlas and a family of Delta rockets.

The Delta 4 single rocket final rocket is expected to be launched from Cape Canaveral in July with a GPS navigation satellite.

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