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The Last Atlas 2 Rocket Launch
Fiz Ocelot writes "Reuters reports that the last Atlas 2 rocket was launched on Tuesday. The rocket was the last to launch the old-fashioned way. For this launch, the 120-member team was inside a blockhouse 1,400 feet from the launch pad. It was also the end of an era dating back to the 1950s, when most rockets, including early manned flights, were launched from concrete blockhouses adjacent to the pads."
From the article: "The Atlas 2 is giving way to the Atlas 5, a more versatile and less expensive rocket that is in contention with the new Boeing Co Delta 4 and other systems to become the primary launch vehicle for NASA's new moon program, which is scheduled to fly in the next decade."
For those who may or may not have RTFA, it says that they will be replaces by the Atlas 5 rocket.
Hi there
The Atlas 5 is replacing the 2.
The Altas 5 can be launched in light, medium, and heavy configurations with different types of strap-on boosters and main engine configurations, all interchangable.
This brings the US more in-line in competing with the French/ESA Araiane rockets.
More info on atlas V can be found here .
Check out the launch video here
fifteen jugglers, five believers
The Atlas V launch system uses the same Centaur stage as on the flight proven Atlas III. More operationally efficient than previous systems [ Atlas II and III], the Atlas V significantly reduces the time required to process and prepare each vehicle for launch, thus enabling greater flexibility in meeting customer launch schedule requirements. The modular design and broad performance capability of the Atlas V family maximize responsiveness to customer performance and mission requirements.
fifteen jugglers, five believers
Today's launch was the last of the Atlas IIAS line. There were earlier models, and there will be models yet to come. There was an Atlas IIA, an Atlas II, and, of course, the Atlas A, the first US ICBM.
Meet the Atlas Family, all 15 of them. First flight of a small prototype was in 1947. The first real Atlas flew in 1957. Alan Shepard flew into space on an Atlas D.
It's a big pressurized stainless steel can with engines. Still a good design after half a century.
This launch signals more than simply the end of that particular series of rocket.
It also signals the end of NASA's two-decade old "Shuttle + Small Rocket" schema. Hooray.
To put it another way, about *$#&#*$ time!
The "Shuttle + Small Rocket" paradigm has kept us firmly in Earth orbit for a generation, and is actually (always was) a step back from the 100-useful-tonnes-to-L.E.O. capabilites of the Apollo-era Saturn V.
This move is a move back to heavy boosters, and can't come soon enough for those of us who are keen on "seeing what's out there".
In weight terms, with 60's technology (ie the Saturn V) we could have lifted the whole ISS in two shots. With the Shuttle (ie the Winnebago of Space exploration) that has had to be stretched out over a decade, cost far more than it had to, and prevented any other human space-flight programs from going ahead.
Sending up 100 tonnes, and bringing 90 tonnes back (the Shuttle model) was always a dumb idea. If you go to the trouble of sending 100 tonnes to orbit, you should get more bang for your buck than a measley 10%.
End of an era, well overdue.
IIRC, the Atlas V uses a more conventional structure similar to the Thor (now Delta).
A dad of one of my friend's from high school worked on the Atlas in the early days and had a few stories to tell. One story was how TI got into volume production of silicon transistors - Convair wanted a bunch, TI said they couldn't make that many, and the Air Force said build a plant to make them - the Minuteman project later jump started the IC business.
Still amazing to see a design as old as I am still in use.
A Shadeless room is a brighter room.
Alan Shepard flew into space on an Atlas D
No, Shepard and Grissom flew into space on a Redstone.
Glenn, Carpenter, Schirra, and Cooper flew on Atlas D's.
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
Good articles from Spaceflight Now:
Atlas 2 rocket retires with remarkable record
AC-167 launch timeline
Launch ground track
Atlas 2AS vehicle data
Yes, you can live in an abandoned missile silo. Can anyone say nuclear rave?
Supposedly it is a data relay satellite, intended to relay intelligence data from other spacecraft to Earth, probably replacing an older spacecraft. A codename "Quasar" is being whispered. See here. So, you might be closer to the truth than you thought when posting :)
karma capped
Agreed, The only true use for the Shuttle right now is bringing broken stuff back, but at 600 million a launch, It better be worth something...
I personally was offended that my tax dollars were used to save a Commercial Satelite which was then quickly resold to the Chineese after it was repaired. Obviously someone had friends in high places.
A throw-weight of 10% would be fantaastic... (yes, I know you're refering to what's left up there - but it was that line which set me looking for info on payloads vs launchweight).
- The Saturn V had a take off weight of 3,038,500 kg and could deliver 118,000 kg to LEO - or put differently, a whopping 3.88% of the weight would be payload.
- The shuttlesystem weights in at 2,029,633 kg (or about 2/3rds of the Saturn V) and can deliver 27,850 kg to 24,400 kg to LEO (used to be more, but was redisgned after the Challenger accident). This puts the shuttle at a measly 1.37% to 1.20% payload left in orbit.
- The Atlas IIAS had a typical take off weight of 234,000 kg and was capabel of putting 8,610 kg in LEO. A respecable 3.68%, but still below the Saturn V.
- The Atlas V, which will replace the Atlass IIAS, weights 546,700 kg at lift off, manages 12,500 kg to LEO, which in turns means that just 2.29% of the mass is payload.
- The Titan II, well known for launching the Gemini spacecraft into orbit, weighted in at 154,000 kg and lifted 3,100 kg to LEO - or 2.01%.
- The Titan 4, designed to lift 'shuttle sized payloads', weights in at a respectable 886,420 kg, but manages 'only' 17,700 kg to LEO, or about 1.99%.
- Going tothe russian side, the Soyuz 11A511U2 (for many a year the mainstay of the manned spaceprogram in the Soviet Union), weighted in at 297,800 kg and lifted 7,050 kg to LEO. This places it, with 2.36%, in the same league as american boosters.
- ESA uses the large, 777,000 kg Ariane 5 EC-A, capabel of placing 16,000 kg in LEO. At a ratio of 2.06% this is no better or worse than most other launchers.
In short, the Saturn V was a vastly superior rocket - simply because of the economics of scale.
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
The difference is that we typically have about a 20 man crew, everything from range support to NASA TM to PI and his crew. Check out my lab's photo gallery for some pictures.
IMHO the name "Atlas" has been kept going as a marketing ploy. The current "Atlas" is as much an "Atlas" as twisted pair Ethernet is the original "garden hose coax" Ethernet. The Atlas has been re-giggered over the years until the only part in common is the concept of using very flimsy pressurized tanks as structural elements. Everything else, engines, boosters, upper stages have all been radically changed several times over. And the reason the success rate was mentioned may be to counteract the Atlas's poor early reliability... Something like 30 big kabooms in the first 35 launches.
I seem to remember SkyLab being two Saturn-V shots in the Apollo Applications program. In the 1970s.
Skylab was essentially the third stage of a Saturn V, put up in a single piece. This was followed up by four service flights launched on Saturn IB rockets. These service flights carried crew and supplies, and in the case of the first one, an umbrella to replace the Skylab insulation that had been damaged on liftoff.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.