http://www.spaceflightnow.com/delta/...070624repairs/

that is one HUGE rocket

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The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. ~ Ernest Hemingway ...

And, for some reason, that picture makes me think of a giant pez dispenser.

It's nice that they mention this:
But would have been much better if they elaborated on it.

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

Kind sir, please elaborate for me?

Any better details would be nice. Largest? Tallest? Tonnage? Girth? Capacity? Big doesn't exactly describe what is being quantified. Ok; maybe I'm getting nitpicky, but a quick comparison to other rockets in use would be nice.

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

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The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. ~ Ernest Hemingway ...

Any better details would be nice. Largest? Tallest? Tonnage? Girth? Capacity? Big doesn't exactly describe what is being quantified. Ok; maybe I'm getting nitpicky, but a quick comparison to other rockets in use would be nice.

With the retirement of the Titan IV-B, the Delta IV Heavy is the most powerful expendable booster in the US inventory. If Boeing ever launches their Atlas V Heavy (similar configuration to the Delta IV Heavy), then it'll probably be the most powerful booster.

How does the thrust of this vehicle compare with the thrust of the Shuttle+SRBs and also with the thrust of the Saturn V?

Also, how does this vehicle compare with Russian heavy-lift vehicles?

Whoa.... don't let Lockheed Martin hear you say that, they'll slap you silly.

Delta = Boeing (ex. McDonnel Douglas).
Atlas = LockMart.
.

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Delta + Atlas = United Launch Alliance.

They're under the same umbrella now.

Doug

Woops, got them reversed. But, as djellison pointed out, it's all the same now.

How does the thrust of this vehicle compare with the thrust of the Shuttle+SRBs and also with the thrust of the Saturn V?

Much less. At liftoff, the Saturn V produced 7.5 million pounds of thrust. It was able to place 118,000 kg (260,000 pounds) into a 28 degree inclination orbit at 185 km altitude or to send 47,000 kg (103,000 pounds) to a translunar trajectory.

At liftoff, a Shuttle with 2 SRBs and 3 SSMEs running is producing somewhere around 6 million pounds of thrust (the figures on the linked article are for vacuum - it'd be somewhat less at sea level). It has an actual payload to a 28 degree inclination orbit on the order of 50,000 pounds. If you factor in the mass of the orbiter itself with the payload, it's more like 260,000 to 270,000 pounds.

The Delta IV Heavy produces approximately 2 million pounds of thrust at liftoff. According to the linked article, it has the following payload capacity:

LEO Payload: 25,800 kg (56,800 lb). to: 185 km Orbit. at: 28.50 degrees. Payload: 10,843 kg (23,904 lb). to a: Geosynchronous transfer, 27deg inclination trajectory.

In other words, it can put less than 1/4th the payload of a Saturn V into LEO but about the same or even a little better than the Shuttle.

You can research the Russian boosters at the Encyclopedia Astronautica website. It's a good source of info.

Thanks Larry Jacks. That data puts it into perspective.

The numbers on astronautixon many pages such as the shuttle are not correct. The shuttle SRB (each) does have a sea-level thrust of about 3 million pounds. On STS-107, per a NASA chart released on the SRB performance on that flight, the SRBs (each) peaked out at 3.1 million sea-level pounds of thrust, about 20-25 seconds into flight. There is confusion because the number given out sometimes is 2.5 or 2.7 million or so. This is the average thrust (check the ATK pages). The SRBs drop greatly in thrust in the second minute of their burn, down to about 1.5 million and eventually below a million.

Delta 4-Heavy is the tallest rocket in the world today at 235 feet, and is the largest US ELV in terms of weight at launch and payload capacity. It has 1.9 million pounds of thrust at launch which is less than an Atlas 5 55x.

But it cannot compare to the shuttle in weight, capability and thrust.

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My website

Even Jim from NASASPACEFLIGHT.com has admitted reservations about this rocket.

There is something you should all remember. Why did Ares V go up to a larger core? Because RS-68 (though simple compared to SSME) really drinks the hydrolox. And yet even ET has better volume than Delta IV.

Delta IV is an awkward size. Large and unwieldy compared to Atlas, and yet comparatively narrow--too narrow to use high-volume/low-density LH2 effectively--thus my statement that Delta IV is the "Thud" of LVs.

Just like the Air Force.

Ares I can fly depressed trajectory better. Thats what you need for capsules. Delta IV is a sat-launcher--and not a very good one at that.

Saturn IB is actually small compared to Delta IV---and cheaper compared to the final Titan IVs that could put 18-20 tons in orbit.

But Saturn IB that was an Army rocket. And the Air Farce made sure it was killed.

ABMA should have stayed in charge of all things space.

Why do we have both the Delta IV (Heavy) and the Ares V?

For one thing we don't have the Ares V yet. For another the Delta IV (Heavy) has a much smaller lifting capacity than the Ares V

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But Saturn IB that was an Army rocket. And the Air Farce made sure it was killed.

That's an absurd assertion. After the moon landings, NASA flew Saturn IBs for through all three Skylab manned launches and Apollo-Soyuz. After that, NASA dumped everything Apollo and went to the Shutte. It was NASA, not the Air Force, that pulled the plug on all of the Saturns.

As for the RS-68 verses the SSME, the RS-68 has a vacuum Isp of 420 seconds (365 seconds for sea level) verses 453/363 seconds for the SSME. The SSME has a chamber pressure of 204 bar while the RS-68's pressure is about 96 bar. That probably accounts for a lot of the vacuum Isp difference. The SSME's high chamber pressure made it an expensive engine to develop (lots of teething troubles), maintain, and operate. The RS-68 was designed to be expendable, cheaper to produce, and to produce more thrust than the SSME.

So, will the Ares V replace the Delta IV Heavy? Or is the Ares V being designed solely for Project Constellation/Orion?

The Delta IV Heavy has roughly the payload capacity of "The Stick" (the Ares I). That's why some suggest it's foolish for NASA to develop the Stick when the Delta IV Heavy or Atlas V Heavy boosters could do the job (without having to spend billions on R&D).

The Ares V is a heavy lifter designed solely for Constellation/Orion. As such, it'll cost billions to develop and probably only have a flight rate of 1-3 times per year at best.

that's funny, I hit reply and suddenly another 8 posts turn up...and no, not all made while typing this

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Are delta-IVH and atlas-VH man rated?

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To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

Are delta-IVH and atlas-VH man rated?

There is debate about what the term even means. Not every rocket that NASA has used to carry humans into space has been man rated. For example, some argue that the Shuttle doesn't meet the criteria to be called man rated.

According to this article, Lockheed is looking into human-rating (got to be PC, don't you know) the Atlas V. It wouldn't even need to be an Atlas V Heavy to launch people into orbit.

What would it take to make them human-rated? From what I've read, the biggest need would be to add some redundancy to certain components to eliminate potential failure modes and to probably add some fault detection equipment to give enough warning for the launch escape system to fire. Would that be cheap? Nope - nothing developed for aerospace is cheap. Would it cost as much as developing the Ares I? I seriously doubt it.

tonight's the night....hope it's on tv!!!

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The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. ~ Ernest Hemingway ...

I don't want to crush your hopes, but...
Remember that they only give the shuttle thirty seconds on the news.

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I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
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Rovers forever! - ToSeek

I think it can't have strap-on solid boosters, or anything that could drop ice chunks on to something critical for life-support or re-entry. Yes, the shuttle doesn't qualify, except for the grandfather clause.

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Forming opinions as we speak

SpaceflightNow: Mission Status Center

United Launch Allliance: Live ULA Launches

(Beware, there's a possible typo in the URLs they supply for streaming video: "laucnh" instead of "launch". Right now either, and other misspellings, give the same results: not available at this time.)

Webcast begins:
2014 EST; 1714 PST; 0114 UTC

183-minute launch window begins:
2039 EST; 1739 PST; 0139 UTC

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183-minute launch window begins:
2039 EST; 1739 PST; 0139 UTC

4 hours to launch

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SpaceflightNow: Mission Status Center

United Launch Allliance: Live ULA Launches

Webcast begins:
2014 EST; 1714 PST; 0114 UTC

5 minutes to start of webcast

183-minute launch window begins:
2039 EST; 1739 PST; 0139 UTC

30 minutes to launch

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Webcast has begun.

Working no issues. On schedule.

Weather is not a problem.

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183-minute launch window begins:
2039 EST; 1739 PST; 0139 UTC

15 minutes to launch

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All appears well.

Poll begun...

10 minutes to launch

Edit: Ready. Ready. Ready. Poll good. All ready.

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