The Delta C, or Thor-Delta C was an American

expendable launch system An expendable launch system (or expendable launch vehicle/ELV) is a launch vehicle that can be launched only once, after which its components are destroyed during reentry or impact with Earth, or discarded in space. ELVs typically consist of s ...

used for thirteen

orbital launch An orbital spaceflight (or orbital flight) is a spaceflight in which a spacecraft is placed on a trajectory where it could remain in space for at least one orbit. To do this around the Earth, it must be on a free trajectory which has an altitud ...

es between 1963 and 1969. It was a member of the Delta family of rockets.

Configuration

The first stage was a Thor missile in the DSV-2A (MB-3-II) configuration, and the second stage was the

Delta D The Delta D, Thrust Augmented Delta or Thor-Delta D was an American expendable launch system used to launch two communications satellites in 1964 and 1965. It was derived from the Delta C, and was a member of the Delta (rocket family), Delta fami ...

( AJ-10-118D), which was derived from the earlier

Delta Delta commonly refers to: * Delta (letter) (Δ or δ), the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet * D (NATO phonetic alphabet: "Delta"), the fourth letter in the Latin alphabet * River delta, at a river mouth * Delta Air Lines, a major US carrier ...

. The baseline Delta C used an Altair-2 (X-258) third stage, whilst the Delta C1 had an FW-4D third stage, which provided a higher payload capacity than the Altair. It is unclear whether two or three launches were made using the C1 configuration.

Launches

The Delta C was launched from Cape Canaveral Launch Complex 17. Most launches carried

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

research satellites into

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an geocentric orbit, orbit around Earth with a orbital period, period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an orbital eccentricity, eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial object ...

References

{{Thor and Delta rockets Delta (rocket family) Vehicles introduced in 1963 Vehicles discontinued in 1969