A McDonnell Douglas plan to resume launches of its troubled Delta II rockets was frustrated Friday by weather. A launch that was supposed to have carried an Iridium communications satellite was scrubbed due to upper-level winds at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The company said it had rescheduled the launch for Saturday.
The company suspended its satellite ventures earlier this year when a Delta II exploded within 12 seconds of takeoff on 17 January at Cape Canaveral Air Station, Florida. After investigating the matter, the US Air Force linked the rocket failure to a fissure in the casing of one of the nine solid rocket booster engines that encircle the bottom stage of the craft.
"We have taken the appropriate steps to enhance Delta's flight safety and success to include additional inspections, analysis, testing, and enhancements of procedures regarding solid rocket motor processing and handling," Jay Witzling, McDonnell Douglas director for the Delta II and Titan programs, said in a statement.
But the exact cause of the casing's crack is not known. The Air Force has yet to release its report of the accident to the public, and McDonnell Douglas would not comment on the contents of the document. The company would only say that they have conducted thorough tests of the rocket and that they are cleared for launch. This rocket will be carrying five Iridium satellites. The ill-fated Delta II carried only three of Iridium's satellites.
The Delta II has a 1 in 20 failure rate, according to John Pike, space policy analyst for the Federation of American Scientists. At the time of the accident, the Air Force said the explosion was the first near-pad incident since 1977. With each launch, the Delta II is outfitted with new solid fuel rocket boosters, as the engines last for only one mission before falling back to Earth, presumably into the ocean.
This year, McDonnell Douglas expects to launch 12 to 14 Delta II rockets, a mix of government and commercial missions.
Like other aerospace firms, McDonnell Douglas is trying to cash in on the defense conversion of ballistic missiles into commercial craft. And the Huntington Beach, California, company will likely play a bigger role in this growing industry. Boeing Corp., which acquired McDonnell Douglas for a cool US$13.3 billion in December, has signed on to be the satellite and launch systems and launch site integrator for Teledesic Corp., the Bill Gates and Craig McCaw-backed company that plans to send more than 840 satellites into low-Earth orbit to build a telecommunications network in space.
