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.
“Mission Control”17 pages
S/ A-1 shut down at 213 sec due to failure of its turbopump assembly. The vehicle continued flight till 221 seconds when erratic attitude rates were noted. At 229 seconds, the impact point stopped. At 257 seconds, the pressure dropped to zero in the stage-1 thrust-chamber assembly 2. At the same time, stages 1 and 2 separated as stage 2 ignited. After this time, stage-2 attitude rates were erratic. Destruct was sent by the RSO at 273 seconds. 307. 34D (AFSC), 18 Apr 86, Response Mode 4, Flight Phase 0: At about 8.8 seconds after liftoff, the insulation and case of SRM No. 2 debonded resulting in case rupture immediately thereafter. The core vehicle was destroyed by fragments from the ruptured motor. Auto-destruct was activated on SRM-1 at 9.0 seconds. 311. 34D-3/Transtage, 2 Sep 88, Response Mode NA, Flight Phase 5: Transtage pressurization system failed due to damage to the upper portion of the transtage fuel tank and pressurization lines. A_ leak of 1,340 pounds occurred during park orbit, and a large helium-tank gas leak occurred during transtage first burn. Not enough helium was left in system to allow start of second bum. The payload was left in a geostationary transfer orbit. 315. Titan IV-1/IUS, 14 June 89, Response Mode NA, Flight Phase 1: Late in Stage-1 burn, one of the engines failed and shut down. The other engine was able to gimbal sufficiently to maintain control until propellant depletion. Trajectory inaccuracies were compensated for during Stage-2 burn, and the mission was a success. 319. Commercial Titan, 14 Mar 90, Response Mode NA, Flight Phase 2.5 and 5: Boost phase was satisfactory. The payload separation system was designed for two satellites and had two discrete outputs from the missile guidance computer (MGC), but for this mission it carried only a single satellite. The wiring team miswired the harness, which connected the MGC payload-separation discretes to the payload separation device, so the satellite never received the separation signal. PKM and satellite did not separate from Stage II resulting in low-earth elliptical orbit. Ground controllers were able to separate satellite hours later but PKM remained attached to Stage II. 328. IV, 2 Aug 93, Response Mode 4, Flight Phase 0: A leak occurred in SRM#l at 99.9 seconds that rapidly enveloped the vehicle in propellant gases. Approximately 1.6 seconds later the vehicle blew up and disintegrated, apparently due to activation of the inadvertent-separation destruct system. . Destruct was transmitted at 104.5 seconds. 329. II/SLV (Landsat 6), 5 Oct 93, Response Mode 4, Flight Phase 2: Following a successful Titan-II second-stage burn and after payload separation, the apogee- kick motor failed to ignite and circularize the highly-elliptical orbit. The Landsat payload and Titan II followed a ballistic trajectory back into the atmosphere where bumup occurred. 9/10/96 163 RTI
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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.