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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…
the other end. It is possible, however, to obtain fairly close agreement over sectors"'
from ±80° to ±180°, as seen in Figure 9. Since for Atlas HAS there are few, if any,
significant population centers in the launch area outside these sectors (i.e., within ±80°
of the flight line), failure of the curves to match closely near the flight line is of little
. consequence. If a better data match is considered desirable for computing risks to
population centers within ±80° of the flight line (e.g., ships), either a different A can be
selected for use with B = 1,000 or other values of A and B can be derived. If only a
single value of B is used, no matter what the value, a good match between theoretical
and simulated data is not possible over the entire 180° sector for various breakup qa.'s.
Before becoming too concerned about lack of a data match between 0° and 80°, it
should be remembered that many types of Mode-5 responses cannot be simulated, so
that the malfunction-tum impact distributions plotted in Figure 9 are only a subset of
all possible Mode-5 impacts. Based on twelve Mode-5 failure responses for. which
impact data are available, it is believed that inclusion of the ''non-simulatable" Mode-5
responses would considerably improve the match in the sector from ±10° to ±80°.
Another mitigating factor is that risks near the flight line are totally dominated by
Mode-4 failure responses.
To see how data matching is affected by selecting widely differing values of B, the
theoretical Mode-5 impact distributions were computed for B =50,000, 100,000, 500,000,
and 5,000,000. Best-fit values for A were again determined by trial and error. Results
are shown in Figure 10 through Figure 13 along with the same impact distributions for
random-attitude turns plotted in Figure 9.
"' For other values of B and qa, close agreement is possible from ±60° to ±180°.
9/10/96 43 RT!

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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.