Re: SpaceX Upgrades

edkyle99_at_hotmail.com
Date: 10/21/04 

Date: 21 Oct 2004 14:51:35 -0700

NASA has been the most frequent user of Delta II since
about 2001, but the U.S. Dept of Defense (most notably
the Air Force) has purchased more Delta II missions than
any other customer all told. And, of course, Delta II was
developed in response to an Air Force RFP to launch
the GPS constellation (a few years after NASA shut down
the original Delta production line).

There have been 40-ish GPS launches now, and other DoD
payloads account for about 5 more launches. NASA didn't
use Delta II much until the mid-1990s, but has now used the
rocket 30-some times. Delta II hasn't handled a commercial
launch since 2002, but the Iridium and Globalstar launches
pushed the commercial Delta II launch total up to nearly
40-something as well. Altogether, government-funded
payloads account for about 70% of all Delta II missions.

In retrospect, Delta II was busiest when it was doing the
initial launches of LEO or MEO constellations and it flew
more than a dozen times per year. Each of these surges
only lasted 2-3 years, however. The last few years, when
NASA has been the biggest customer, have seen Delta II
fly only about a half-dozen times per year, with NASA
accounting for an average of a bit more than 3 per year.

 - Ed Kyle

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Dear NASA Administrator Michael Griffin
    ... NASA would be the only users of Ares I/V. ... As long as NASA quits trying to make money by offering commercial launches, ... But if we had a multipurpose Delta IV launcher going up 24 times per ... Export controls are in place to ensure that sales and leases of ...
    (sci.space.policy)
  • Re: NASA Astronaut on Columbia Repair (and others)
    ... Jeff Findley wrote: ... NASA would be the only users of Ares I/V. ... NASA could buy Atlas V and/or Delta IV launches for earth orbit CEV flights ...
    (sci.space.shuttle)
  • Re: Current US military thinking on launch needs
    ... Both buy Delta II launches from ... "Last AF Delta II - Transfer to NASA". ... The Air Force fostered the development of Delta II ...
    (sci.space.policy)
  • Why not an EELV?
    ... He is an excerpt from my autobiography on what happened for NASA to pick the Ares 1 over the Atlas or the Delta. ... Based on my work on using the Soyuz as a life boat for the space station, I knew it was possible to make a capsule that can enter without active attitude control. ... If the launch vehicles fails and the entry vehicle ended up in the middle of a North Atlantic storm, rescue would be next to impossible. ...
    (sci.space.shuttle)
  • Re: ESAS - VSE article by Jeffery Bell
    ... It is worth pointing out that these problems are not a NASA ... excuse to develop the SRB-based CLV; ... expect NASA to pay for it if it wants to use Delta as a CLV. ... LH2 boiloff problem on the LSAM to a manageable level. ...
    (sci.space.policy)