Department of the Air Force Report, 1996

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.

The best-fit values of B and A shown in Figure 27 and Figure 28 are tabulated for
convenient reference in-Table 24. For breakup qa's of 10,000 and 5,000 deg-lb/ft2, the
currently-used value of B = 1,000 provided a better data fit than other values of B that
were investigated.
Table 24. Shaping Constants for Titan IV
TB
(sec) Breakupqa
(deg-lb/ft2) B A II
300 none
20,000
10,000
5,000
1,000 2.00
2.95
3.25
3.50
300 none
20,000
10,000
5,000
10,000
2,000
1,000
1,000
2.70
3.15
3.25
3.50
Risk calculations in the launch area were not made for Titan IV.
9/10/96 68 RTI