Documents / Report

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. 29 …Thus, the last data point, which is always given a weight of one, can never be…
  • p. 172 …the payload separation device, so the satellite never received the separation signal. PKM and satellite did…
  • p. 179 …Probably because of rupture of the lower oxidizer manifold, normal thrust levels never developed. About 50…
Table of Contents ·
1. Introduction............................................................................................................................... 1
2. Examples Showing Need for Mode 5 ................................................................................ 3
3. Understanding the Mode-5 Failure Response ................................................................... 7
3.1 Effects of Mode-5 Shaping Consta.nts................................. ".....................................-...... 9
3.2 Effects of Shaping Constant on DAMP Results ........................................................ 9
4. Methodology for Assessing Failure Probabilities ........................................................... 13
4.1 The Parts-Analysis Approach .................................................................................. 13'-
4.2 The Empirical Approach .......................................................................................... 15
5. Computation of Failure Probabilities ............................................................................... 16
5.1 Overall Failure Probability....................................................................................... 16
5.2 Relative and Absolute Probabilities for Response Modes ..................................... 24
5.3 Relative Probability of Tumble for Response-Modes 3 and 4 ............................... 30
6. Shaping Constants Through Simulation .......................................................................... 31
6.1 Malfunction Tum. Simulations...........•...................................................................... 31
6.1.1 Random-Attitu.de Failures .............. .-............................................................... 31
6.1.2 Slow-Tum Failures ........................................................................................... 32
6.1.3 Factors Affecting Malfunction-Tum Results ................................................ 33
6.1.4 Malfunction-Tum Results for Atlas IIAS ...................................................... 35
6.2 Shaping Constants for Atlas IIAS ............................................................................ 37
6.2.1 Optimum Mode-5 Shaping Constants ........................................................... 37
6.2.2 Launch-Area Mode-5 Risks ............................................................................ 49
6.2.3 Effects of Mode-5 Constants on Ship-Hit Contours ..................................... 51
6.2.4 Range Distributions of Theoretical and Simulated Impacts........................ 58
6.3 Shaping Constants for Delta-GEM .......................................................................... 60
6.3.1 Optimum Mode-5 Shaping Constants ........................................................... 61
6.3.2 Launch-Area Mode-5 Risks ............................................................................ 64
6.4 Shaping Constants for Titan IV................................................................................ 65
6.5 Shaping Constants for LLVl .................................................................................... 69
6.6 Shaping Constants for Other Launch Vehicles ....................................................... 72
7. Potential Future Investigations ......................................................................................... 73
8. Summarv:., ............................................................................................................................ 74
9/10/96 ii RTI
I

Not linked to a story yet.

About this file

Report, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 181 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.