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Marketed as “the most metallic of rockets,” United Launch Alliance’s massive triple-core Delta IV Heavy roars to life amid a hydrogen fireball on the launch pad, furious flames billowing and blackening its rockets. orange thrusters seconds before takeoff.
Pyrotechnic comparisons to heavy metal music aside, Rob Long has a soft spot for the retiring megarocket, as do many of the thousands of employees involved in the program over the past two decades on the Space Coast. He worked for three and a half years as a mission manager for the National Reconnaissance Office preparing for the agency’s first Delta IV Heavy launch: NROL-26 in January 2009 from Cape Canaveral.
And Long said he considers the Delta IV Heavy “near and dear to my heart.”
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“That was a great learning experience. You learn a piece of cake how to take a satellite and put it on a launch vehicle,” recalled Long, who is now president and CEO of Space Florida.
Now, ending an era in American spaceflight, the 16th and final Delta IV heavy rocket is scheduled to lift off at 1:40 p.m. Thursday from Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. However, ULA officials reported that the forecast only shows a 30% chance of favorable weather conditions.
The mission marks the 389th and final flight of the Delta program, which dates back to 1960. ULA is replacing the retired rocket with the next-generation Vulcan, which recorded a successful maiden flight in January from the Cape. Crews can configure the flexible and less expensive Vulcan with zero, two, four or six solid rocket boosters to accommodate a variety of orbital missions.
“We’re interested in reuse and new ways of doing business. On the one hand, it’s nostalgic. And it’s a great memory for me personally. But at the same time, I think it speaks to just moving forward in the industry, and without looking back,” Long said.
Tune in Thursday to floridatoday.com/space for live coverage from FLORIDA TODAY’s space team and updates on the latest Delta IV Heavy launch, which began about two hours before liftoff.
The historic rocket will rise into the sky with a classified payload on the NROL-70 national security mission, conducted in conjunction with the NRO and the Space Force’s Space Systems Command. The huge rocket launches the NRO’s heaviest satellites.
ULA CEO: ‘It’s a beautiful rocket’
FLORIDA TODAY asked ULA President and CEO Tory Bruno about the Delta IV Heavy retirement last month during an interview at the SpaceCom convention in Orlando.
“It’s a beautiful rocket. He has launched incredible missions. “It is the most metallic of all rockets, as I like to say: it catches fire before going into space,” Bruno said.
“I just love it. And then we’re all going to miss it. So it’s going to be bittersweet,” he said.
Why does the Delta IV Heavy appear to “emerge from a cloud of fire” during takeoff? A ULA video explains that the fireball is created by floating hydrogen gas that ignites before the engines reach power.
Bruno noted that he discussed the rocket’s fiery features with Swedish heavy metal band Sabaton, one of his favorite bands, when he attended their concert in Denver in September 2022.
“We brought them a Delta IV Heavy model. We were back with them in their green room. They were getting rocket science lessons and they knew it was the most metallic of all the rockets, but they wanted to know why. So we took them. I had fun with them “Bruno said.
Delta IV Heavy debuted in 2004
The Delta IV Heavy debuted during a demonstration flight in December 2004 from Launch Complex 37. At the time, it was the most powerful rocket launched from Cape Canaveral except the Saturn V and the space shuttles.
Three years later, the inaugural Delta IV Heavy mission with a payload launched in November 2007 from the Cape, lifting a US Air Force satellite designed to provide early warning of ICBM launches. Long’s NROL-26 mission in January 2009 represented the rocket’s second mission and third overall flight.
Long was an Air Force captain when he began his three and a half years of mission management duties and was later promoted to major by takeoff. He then went on to command the Delta 30 space launch as a colonel at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
According to a Space Force summary, the Delta family of rockets, which includes smaller models like the Delta II, has delivered a wide range of payloads “including military, government and commercial scientific, communications and weather satellites, robotic probes for exploration, eight Mars Explorers and a telescope” over the past 60 years.
“These launches put critical capabilities into orbit for our nation and our allies in dynamic times for the space community,” Col. Jim Horne, senior materiel leader for Space System Command’s Launch Execution Delta, said in a news release. before the final. launch.
“Each member of our launch team understands what is at stake and works carefully and efficiently to prepare for what will be a tremendous launch,” Horne said.
Latest release “will be one for the books”
ULA mission preparation timeline for latest Delta IV Heavy launch:
- Can: The rocket arrived at Cape Canaveral aboard ULA’s R/S RocketShip, a 312-foot cargo ship, after a voyage from the company’s rocket factory in Decatur, Alabama.
- December: Crews lifted the rocket upright at Launch Complex 37.
- 26 of February: Encapsulated within a 5-meter-wide fairing, the NROL-70 payload was delivered to the pad and hoisted atop the rocket, increasing the vehicle’s height to 235 feet.
Once the NROL-70 mission ends, SpaceX officials hope to soon take over Launch Complex 37 and “modify, repurpose or demolish” ULA’s infrastructure to create a new Starship-Super Heavy launch base by 2026.
Air Force officials are working on a Starship environmental impact statement with NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. Coast Guard. Two weeks ago, Space Force officials collected public comments on the proposal during open houses in Cocoa, Titusville and Cape Canaveral. A virtual town hall meeting with a narrated slide presentation is online at spaceforcestarshipeis.com.
The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex is selling tickets to see the launch of Delta IV Heavy for $70. Spectators will ride a bus past the KSC gates to the Apollo/Saturn V Center to watch the massive rocket lift off beyond Banana Creek.
“Being located on an active spaceport, we have seen many major launches here at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. And the last launch of the Delta IV Heavy will be recorded,” Therrin Protze, director of operations at the visitor complex, said in an email.
“Celebrating this final launch here at the visitor complex, where visitors can see many history-making rockets, including two previous Delta rockets in our rocket garden, is an unparalleled experience that we are excited to offer our visitors,” said Protze. .
Rick Neal is a space reporter at FLORIDA TODAY (for more of his stories, Click here.) Contact Neale at 321-242-3638 or Rneale@floridatoday.com. Twitter/X: @RickNeale1
