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Department of the Air Force Report, 1996

U.S. Department of War · 1996-09-10 · 181 pages · text from the file's own layer

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.

  • p. 88 …Vehicle loses control at or shortly after liftoff, with all flight directions equally likely. Destruct is…
  • p. 106 …121 (8) Missiles/Space Vehicle Files, 45th Space Wing, Wing Safety, Mission Flight Control and Analysis…
  • p. 111 …Such behavior did not necessarily prevent the attainment of some, or even all, mission objectives. 50…
  • p. 131 …Due to excess speed, spacecraft passed 22,000 miles in front of moon, and primary mission…
  • p. 132 …Although Atlas performance was satisfactory, the mission was apparently a failure. No other data available. 134…
  • p. 133 …A flight-control malfunction occurred at about 15 seconds at the start of the pitch program…
  • p. 137 …Vehicle became unstable when B2 pitch control was lost at 121 seconds. Loss of pitch control…
  • p. 138 …The missile then lost attitude control, executing a hard yaw rate tum throughout and beyond the…
  • p. 139 …of the rate gyro or an electrical failure in the pitch channel of the flight control…
  • p. 140 caused yaw and roll rates that the flight control system could not correct. As a result…
  • p. 151 …Attitude control lost during second stage coast period. Third stage spun up, but did not fire…
  • p. 153 …One solid-rocket motor carried to MECO, but mission was still a complete success. 102. SMS…
  • p. 169 …Missile tumbled out of control at 130 seconds, then broke up. 104. IHA (65-210), 1…
  • p. 170 …Nominal mission through transtage second burn shutdown. Attitude control system engine failed to shutdown following vernier…
  • p. 171 …However, satellite propulsion system malfunctioned putting satellite in uncontrollable position with no possibility of restoring mission…
  • p. 172 …control until propellant depletion. Trajectory inaccuracies were compensated for during Stage-2 burn, and the mission…
  • p. 180 …Missiles/Space Vehicle Files, 45th Space Wing, Wing Safety, Mission Flight Control and Analysis (SEO), 1957…
D.5 Thor Launch and Performance History (Not Including Delta)
The entire Thor history is depicted rather compactly in bar-graph form in Figure 40.
The solid-black portion of each bar indicates the number of launches during the
calendar year for which vehicle performance was entirely normal, in so far as could be
determined. The clear white parts forming the tops of most bars show the number of
launches that were either failures or flights wher~ the launch vehicle experienced some
sort of anomalous behavior. Every launch with an entry in the response mode column
of Table 46 falls in this category. Such behavior did not necessarily prevent the
attainment of some, or even all, mission objectives.
35 .-------......----,---.----,.--,--...--_____,
30
m 25C
0
·enCl)
~ 20
5 ...
055 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95
Launch Year
Figure 40. Thor Launch Summary
D.5.1 Thor and Thor-Boosted Launch History
The data in Table 46 summarize all Thor and Thor-boosted space-vehicle launches since
the program began. A launch sequence number is provided in the first column. A
launch ID and date are provided in- columns 2 and 3. The fourth column indicates the
vehicle configuration. The fifth column indicates the launch range. The sixth column
indicates the failure-response mode (1 through 5 and NA) that RTI has determined best
describes the failures that occurred. For Mode 3 or 4 failures, a suffix of 'T' indicates
the vehicle tumbled. Successful launches are indicated by a blank in the Response-
9/10/96 164 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.