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Heavy-lift Launch Vehicle
A heavy-lift launch vehicle (HLV) is an orbital launch vehicle capable of lifting payloads between (by NASA classification) or between (by Russian classification) into low Earth orbit (LEO).50t payloads" Heavy-lift launch vehicles often carry payloads into higher-energy orbits, such as geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO) or heliocentric orbit (HCO). An HLV is between a medium-lift launch vehicle and a super heavy-lift launch vehicle. History and design Government The first heavy-lift launch vehicles in the 1960s included the US Saturn IB and the Soviet Proton. Saturn IB was designed to carry the Apollo spacecraft into orbit and had increased engine thrust and a redesigned second stage from its predecessor. Proton was originally designed to be a large intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Russia still operates variants of the Proton , although it is expected to be phased out in favor of the Angara A5. NASA introduced the Space Shuttle as the first partially reusab ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Falcon Heavy
Falcon Heavy is a super heavy-lift launch vehicle with partial reusability that can carry cargo into Earth orbit and beyond. It is designed, manufactured and launched by American aerospace company SpaceX. The rocket consists of a center core on which two Falcon 9 boosters are attached, and a second stage on top of the center core. Falcon Heavy has the second highest payload capacity of any currently operational launch vehicle behind NASA's Space Launch System (SLS), and the fourth-highest capacity of any rocket to reach orbit, trailing behind the Space Launch System, SLS, Energia (rocket), Energia and the Saturn V. SpaceX conducted Falcon Heavy test flight, Falcon Heavy's maiden launch on 6 February 2018, at 20:45 Coordinated Universal Time, UTC. As a Boilerplate (spaceflight), dummy payload, the rocket carried Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster, a Tesla Roadster belonging to SpaceX founder Elon Musk, with a mannequin dubbed "Starman" in the driver's seat. The second Falcon Heavy laun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intercontinental Ballistic Missile
An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range (aeronautics), range greater than , primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more Thermonuclear weapon, thermonuclear warheads). Conventional weapon, Conventional, Chemical weapon, chemical, and Biological agent, biological weapons can also be delivered with varying effectiveness, but have never been deployed on ICBMs. Most modern designs support multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRVs), allowing a single missile to carry several warheads, each of which can strike a different target. The Nuclear weapons of the United States, United States, Russia and weapons of mass destruction, Russia, China and weapons of mass destruction, China, France and weapons of mass destruction, France, India and weapons of mass destruction, India, the United Kingdom and weapons of mass destruction, United Kingdom, Nuclear weapons and Israel, Israel, and North Korea and weapons of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Common Booster Core
The Common Booster Core (CBC) was an American rocket stage, which was used on the Delta IV rocket as part of a modular rocket system. Delta IV rockets flying in the Medium and Medium+ configurations each used a single Common Booster Core as their first stage, while the Heavy configuration used three; one as the first stage and two as boosters. The Common Booster Core was long, had a diameter of and was powered by a single RS-68 engine burning liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. The first static test-firing of a Common Booster Core was conducted on 17 March 2001, and the final test of the initial program was conducted on 6 May. Testing was conducted using Test Stand B-2 of the Stennis Space Center, a facility originally constructed for testing of the first stages of Saturn V rockets during the 1960s. The first launch of a Common Booster Core was the maiden flight of the Delta IV, which was launched from Space Launch Complex 37B at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on 20 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Delta IV Heavy
The Delta IV Heavy (Delta 9250H) was an expendable heavy-lift launch vehicle, the largest type of the Delta IV family. It had the highest capacity of any operational launch vehicle in the world after the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011 until the Falcon Heavy debuted in 2018, and it was the world's third highest-capacity launch vehicle in operation at the time of its retirement in 2024. It was manufactured by United Launch Alliance (ULA) and was first launched in 2004. Delta IV Heavy was the last operating member of the Delta IV family, and its final flight was on 9 April 2024. It is succeeded by the Vulcan Centaur rocket. The Delta IV Heavy first stage consisted of a central Common Booster Core (CBC), with two additional CBCs as liquid rocket boosters instead of the GEM-60 solid rocket motors used by the Delta IV Medium+ versions. At lift-off, all three rocket engines would operate at full thrust, and 44 seconds later the central engine would throttle down to 5 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Delta IV
Delta IV was a group of five expendable launch systems in the Delta rocket family. It flew 45 missions from 2002 to 2024. Originally designed by Boeing's Defense, Space and Security division for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program, the Delta IV became a United Launch Alliance (ULA) product in 2006. The Delta IV was primarily a launch vehicle for United States Air Force (USAF) military payloads, but was also used to launch a number of United States government non-military payloads and a single commercial satellite. The Delta IV had two main versions which allowed the family to cover a range of payload sizes and masses: the Medium (which had four configurations) and Heavy. The final flight of Medium occurred in 2019. The final flight of Heavy was in April 2024. Delta IV vehicles were built in the ULA facility in Decatur, Alabama. Final assembly was completed at the launch site by ULA: at the horizontal integration facility for launches from SLC-37B pad at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle
National Security Space Launch (NSSL) is a program of the United States Space Force (USSF) intended to assure access to space for United States Department of Defense and other United States government payloads. The program is managed by the Assured Access to Space Directorate (SSC/AA) of the Space Force's Space Systems Command (SSC), in partnership with the National Reconnaissance Office. Started in 1994 as the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle launch system program, the initial program goal was to make government space launches more affordable and reliable, leading to the development of the Boeing Delta IV and Lockheed Martin Atlas V EELV families. These remained the primary launch vehicles for U.S. military satellites, and were later joined by the Falcon 9 developed by SpaceX. On 1 March 2019, the program name was changed from EELV to National Security Space Launch (NSSL) to better reflect the growing commercial launch market and the changing nature of launch contracts, inc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Titan (rocket Family)
Titan was a family of United States expendable rockets used between 1959 and 2005. The Titan I and Titan II were part of the US Air Force's intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) fleet until 1987. The space launch vehicle versions contributed the majority of the 368 Titan launches, including all the Project Gemini crewed flights of the mid-1960s. Titan vehicles were also used to lift US military payloads as well as civilian agency reconnaissance satellites and to send interplanetary scientific probes throughout the Solar System. Titan I missile The HGM-25A Titan I, built by the Martin Company, was the first version of the Titan family of rockets. It began as a backup ICBM project in case the SM-65 Atlas was delayed. It was a two-stage rocket operational from early 1962 to mid-1965 whose LR-87 booster engine was powered by RP-1 (kerosene) and liquid oxygen (LOX). The ground guidance for the Titan was the UNIVAC ATHENA computer, designed by Seymour Cray, based in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Titan IV
Titan IV was a family of heavy-lift space launch vehicles developed by Martin Marietta and operated by the United States Air Force from 1989 to 2005. Launches were conducted from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida and Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. The Titan IV was the last of the Titan family of rockets, originally developed by the Glenn L. Martin Company in 1958. It was retired in 2005 due to their high cost of operation and concerns over its toxic hypergolic propellants, and replaced with the Atlas V and Delta IV launch vehicles under the EELV program. The final launch (B-30) from Cape Canaveral occurred on 29 April 2005, and the final launch from Vandenberg AFB occurred on 19 October 2005. Lockheed Martin Space Systems built the Titan IVs near Denver, Colorado, under contract to the US government. Two Titan IV vehicles are currently on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio and the Evergreen Aviation and Space Muse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its origins to 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal Corps, the USAF was established by transfer of personnel from the Army Air Forces with the enactment of the National Security Act of 1947. It is the second youngest branch of the United States Armed Forces and the fourth in United States order of precedence, order of precedence. The United States Air Force articulates its core missions as air supremacy, intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance, global integrated intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, airlift, rapid global mobility, Strategic bombing, global strike, and command and control. The United States Department of the Air Force, Department of the Air Force, which serves as the USAF's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inertial Upper Stage
The Inertial Upper Stage (IUS), originally designated the Interim Upper Stage, was a Multistage rocket, two-stage, Solid-propellant rocket, solid-fueled space launch system developed by Boeing for the United States Air Force beginning in 1976 for raising payloads from low Earth orbit to higher orbits or interplanetary trajectories following launch aboard a Titan 34D or Titan IV rocket as its upper stage, or from the payload bay of the Space Shuttle as a space tug. Development During the development of the Space Shuttle, NASA, with support from the Air Force, wanted an upper stage that could be used on the Shuttle to deliver payloads from low earth orbit to higher energy orbits such as geostationary transfer orbit, GTO or geostationary orbit, GEO or to escape velocity for planetary probes. The candidates were the Centaur (rocket), Centaur, propelled by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, the Transtage, propelled by hypergolic storable propellants Aerozine-50 and dinitrogen tetroxide ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apogee Kick Motor
An apogee kick motor (AKM) is a rocket motor that is regularly employed on artificial satellites to provide the final impulse to change the trajectory from the transfer orbit into its final orbit (most commonly circular). For a satellite launched from the Earth, the rocket firing is done at the highest point of the transfer orbit, known as the apogee. An apogee kick motor is used, for example, for satellites launched into a geostationary orbit. As the vast majority of geostationary satellite launches are carried out from spaceports at a significant distance away from Earth's equator, the carrier rocket often only launches the satellite into an orbit with a non-zero inclination approximately equal to the latitude of the launch site. This orbit is commonly known as a "geostationary transfer orbit" or a "geosynchronous transfer orbit". The satellite must then provide thrust to bring forth the needed delta v to reach a geostationary orbit. This is typically done with a fixed onbo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Department Of Defense
The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and supervising the six U.S. armed services: the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Space Force, the Coast Guard for some purposes, and related functions and agencies. As of November 2022, the department has over 1.4 million active-duty uniformed personnel in the six armed services. It also supervises over 778,000 National Guard and reservist personnel, and over 747,000 civilians, bringing the total to over 2.91 million employees. Headquartered at the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C., the Department of Defense's stated mission is "to provide the military forces needed to deter war and ensure our nation's security". The current Secretary of Defense is Pete Hegseth. The Department of Defense is headed by the secretary of defense, a cabinet-level head who reports directly to the president of the U ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
