 | |  |  | | | | | | | | | | | | |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
| |
| Author |
Message |
rob61872
B.V. Info-a-holic
Joined: Oct 10, 2001
Posts: 13684
Location: With JRZGRL
|
 Posted: Thu Aug 22, 2002 4:20 pm Post subject: Lockheed Martin Launches New Heavy-Lifting Rocket |
 |
|
| |
http://reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=sciencenews&StoryID=1357965
Lockheed Martin Launches New Heavy-Lifting Rocket
August 21, 2002 07:04 PM ET
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - Lockheed Martin\'s newest rocket, the Atlas 5, was successfully launched on Wednesday on a mission heralding a new era of heavy-lifting U.S. launch vehicles for next-generation satellites.
Lockheed Martin has more than $1 billion invested in the rocket, which roared off into hot, mostly clear skies bearing a European communications satellite.
Liftoff took place right on schedule at 6:05 p.m. from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, said a Lockheed Martin spokeswoman, Julie Andrews.
\"We\'ve got a perfectly, fantastically successful launch,\" Andrews said after the separation of the rocket from the Eutelsat Hot Bird 6 spacecraft, 31 minutes after the 191-foot tall Atlas 5 took off.
Engineers would be reviewing all the data from the launch, but \"the bottom line is that the flight went as expected,\" she said.
The Atlas 5 was rolled onto the launch pad just a day ago. Normally an unmanned rocket would spend weeks, if not months, on the pad in preparation for liftoff. But quick turnaround is just one new feature of this rocket, which Lockheed Martin promises its customers can be brought to the pad from its vehicle integration building just 12 hours before liftoff.
Lockheed Martin is betting it can significantly reduce launch pad logjams, where a problem with one payload or rocket already on the pad means delays for clients downstream.
The Atlas 5 is designed to withstand hurricane-threshold winds and to launch from a \"clean\" pad, one without the steel-girder launch towers seen since the dawn of the Space Age.
\"We have a much more reliable product. It\'s very robust,\" John Karas, Lockheed Martin\'s vice president for Atlas 5 development, said ahead of the launch.
ENGINES BUILT IN RUSSIA
The newest Atlas bears little resemblance to the first generation of Atlas boosters that put John Glenn into orbit and were the first U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles, aimed at the Soviet Union with nuclear weapons atop them.
The Atlas 5\'s first-stage engines are built near Moscow by Energia, the same Russian company that builds Soyuz spacecraft and modules for the International Space Station.
The Atlas 5 class of rockets use a common booster stage, fueled by kerosene and liquid oxygen, and a Centaur upper stage powered by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen.
The stripped-down version, like the one making its debut on Wednesday, can carry a 28,000-pound payload into Earth orbit. Beefed up with five strap-on solid-fuel boosters and a second Centaur engine, the new Atlas 5 can lift 45,000 pounds, nearly twice the capacity of the last generation of Atlas rockets.
Lockheed Martin has plans to build an even heavier version, with three booster stages strapped together to lift future satellites.
\"Customers are building larger satellites. They have more power, they have longer life. As a result, launch vehicles have to grow,\" said Eric Novotny, marketing vice president for International Launch Services, a U.S.-Russian firm that markets both Atlas and Russian Proton rockets.
The U.S. Air Force began the push for more reliable launch vehicles with greater flexibility about 10 years ago. The result was the Atlas 5 and Boeing\'s Delta 4, which is to make its first liftoff in late September or early March.
|
|
_________________
"You can't trust freedom when it's not in your hands, and everybody's fighting for their promised land" |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
| | | | | | | |
| |
blocks-left.jpg
blocks-left.jpg
blocks-left.jpg
|  |
Online Stats: 
