The Delta 2000 series was an American
expendable launch system which was used to conduct forty-four
orbit
In celestial mechanics, an orbit is the curved trajectory of an object such as the trajectory of a planet around a star, or of a natural satellite around a planet, or of an artificial satellite around an object or position in space such as ...
al launches between 1974 and 1981. It was a member of the
Delta family of rockets. Several variants existed, which were differentiated by a
four digit numerical code. The Delta 1000, 2000 and 3000 series used surplus NASA
Apollo program rockets engines for its first and second stages.
The first stage was an
Extended Long Tank Thor, re-engined with the
Rocketdyne
Rocketdyne was an American rocket engine design and production company headquartered in Canoga Park, in the western San Fernando Valley of suburban Los Angeles, in southern California.
The Rocketdyne Division was founded by North American Avia ...
RS-27
The RS-27 was a liquid-propellant rocket engine developed in 1974 by Rocketdyne to replace the aging MB-3 in the Delta. Incorporating components of the venerable MB-3 and the H-1 designs, the RS-27 was a modernized version of the basic design ...
replacing the earlier
MB-3-III engine. The RS-27 engine was a rebranded
H-1 engine used in the
Saturn 1B
The Saturn IB (also known as the uprated Saturn I) was an American launch vehicle commissioned by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for the Apollo program. It uprated the Saturn I by replacing the S-IV second stage (, ...
with minor changes. Three or nine
Castor-2 solid rocket boosters were attached to increase thrust at lift-off. The
Delta-P
The Delta-P is an American rocket upper stage, stage, developed by McDonnell Douglas and TRW, first used on November 10, 1972 as the second stage for the Delta 1000 series. It continued to serve as the second stage for subsequent Delta 2000 and ...
second stage used the TRW
TR-201
The TR-201 or TR201 is a hypergolic pressure-fed rocket engine used to propel the upper stage of the Delta (rocket family), Delta rocket, referred to as Delta-P, from 1972 to 1988.
The rocket engine uses Aerozine 50 as fuel, and dinitrogen tetrox ...
engine. The TR-201 engine was a
Lunar Module Descent Engine reconfigured for fixed thrust output. Launches which required a three-stage configuration in order to reach higher orbits used the Thiokol
Star-37D or
Star-37E upper stage as an apogee kick motor.
Delta 2000 launches occurred from
Space Launch Complex 2W at
Vandenberg AFB
Vandenberg Space Force Base , previously Vandenberg Air Force Base, is a United States Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County, California. Established in 1941, Vandenberg Space Force Base is a space launch base, launching spacecraft from th ...
and both pads of
Launch Complex 17 at
Cape Canaveral. Forty-three out of forty-four launches were successful. The single failure being the maiden flight, 19 January 1974, which placed
Skynet 2A into a useless orbit. A short circuit in an electronics package circuit board (on second stage) left the upper stages and satellite in an unstable low orbit (96 x 3,406 km x 37.6°) that rapidly decayed. An investigation revealed that a substandard coating had been used on the circuit board.
The cost of each launch was estimated on average at $28.52 million, depending on the combination of carrier rocket.
References
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Delta (rocket family)
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