Documents / Report
This final report, dated September 10, 1996, was prepared by the Research Triangle Institute for the Department of the Air Force's 45th and 30th Space Wing safety offices. Titled Modeling Unlikely Space-Booster Failures in Risk Calculations, it shows how rare Mode-5 failures, in which a rocket veers well off its intended flight line, are modeled in the DAMP risk-analysis program. An appendix lists Atlas, Delta, Titan and Thor launch and failure histories through August 1996.
From the source:Release of 2026-05-08 Incident: 9/10/96, N/A. This report describes the Modeling of Unlikely Space-Booster Failures in Risk Calculations, documenting historical launch failure modes and recommending corrective actions to address them using novel modelling techniques.
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318. 148F (Busy Stepson), 17 Jan 67, Response Mode NA, Flight Phase 2.5: Flight was norm.al except that reentry vehicle failed to separate. 344. 81F (ABRES/AFSC), 27 Oct 67, Response Mode 4T, Flight Phase 1: Although various anomalous events occurred early in flight, the missile appeared to follow the intended trajectory till about 24 seconds. Diverging roll oscillations actually began about 21.4 seconds, and pitch and roll stability were lost by 24.8 seconds. By 27.9 seconds, the vehicle was tumbling about 6.5 degrees per second in pitch and yaw, and 12 degrees per second in roll. By 30 seconds, the vehicle lost all thrust and began to break up. Fuel cutoff and destruct were sent at 35 and 39 seconds, respectively. • 358. 95F (ABRES/AFSC), 3 May 68, Response Mode 5, Flight Phase 1: Immediately after liftoff the telemetered roll and yaw rates indicated that the missile was erratic. During the first 10 seconds of flight the missile yawed hard to the left. It then began a hard yaw to the right, crossed over the flight line and continued toward the right destruct line. Shortly thereafter the missile apparently pitched up violently and the IIP began moving back toward the beach. The missile was destructed at about 45 seconds when the altitude was about 14,000 feet and the downrange distance about 9 miles. Major pieces impacted less than a mile offshore, indicating uprange movement of the impact point during the last part of thrusting flight. 364. 5104C AC-17 (ATS-D), 10 Aug 68, Response Mode NA, Flight Phase 4: A normal parking orbit was achieved, but when Centaur restart was attempted, thrust could not be maintained because of inoperative boost pumps. Frozen H20 2 line was the apparent root cause. 365. 7004 SLV-3/Burner II/Agena D (AFSC), 16 Aug 68: Response Mode 4, Flight Phase 3: Atlas performance was norm.al. The vehicle failed to achieve orbit because th~ protective shroud surrounding the second stage failed to separate. 368. 56F (ABRES/AFSC), 16 Nov 68, Response Mode 4T, Flight Phase 2.5: Flight was norm.al through SECO. The missile then lost attitude control, executing a hard yaw rate tum throughout and beyond the vernier solo phase. 372. 5403C AC-20 (Mariner 6 Mars), 24 Feb 69, Response Mode NA, Flight Phase 1: Early Atlas BECO due to staging accelerometer failure was compensated for by extended Atlas sustainer and Centaur burns. Mission was successful. 379. 98F (ABRES/AFSC), 10 Oct 69, Response Mode 4, Flight Phase 1: The missile appeared normal until about 66 seconds when the sustainer engine shut down prematurely. The booster engine apparently continued normally to BECO. At about 255 seconds the payload SPDS engine ignited. Destruct was sent at 272 seconds. 9/10/96 129 RT!
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Report, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 181 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.