Photo: Pat Corkery/Lockheed MartinOnce the Atlas 3 flies over the horizon, Lockheed Martin begins an extensive safing and deactivation process at Complex 36 after 145 launches from the two-pad site.
Pending a safety and environmental review, a new commercial rocket family will be Complex 36.
The program’s Atlas 5-only era begins in March when a commercial communications satellite is set for launch. They will call Complex 41 their exclusive home after next week’s mission. So far, four Atlas 5 launches have occurred with successful outcomes since 2002.For the past two-and-a-half years, Atlas workers at Cape Canaveral have shuttled between Complex 36 and 41 as they prepped and launched the heritage boosters as well as Atlas 5. West Coast military launches of Atlas 5 from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base, however, will use the more conventional method of putting the rocket stages together on the pad.Development of Atlas 5, spurred by the Air Force’s call for an Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle, was aimed at creating a family of rockets that would be cheaper, easier to operate and offer higher reliability. The first stage represents the biggest change with its rigid structure that replaces the “balloon” pressure-stabilized design that fades into history with Atlas 3.Atlas 5 is assembled in a nearby building atop a mobile launching platform and rolled to its pad at Complex 41 just hours before liftoff unlike any other Atlas.
Photo: Pat Corkery/Lockheed MartinThe modern Atlas 5 is greatly different from the Atlas boosters of the early days. The first Atlas 3 rocket blasts away from pad 36B in 2000. Atlas 5s are launched from the Cape’s Complex 41. It safely introduced the Russian-designed RD-180 engine and later a stretched version of the Centaur upper stage that are vital parts of Atlas 5.Lockheed Martin retired the Atlas 2 family last August and now the Atlas 3 era’s conclusion leaves the company with the various Atlas 5 models - each able to launch cargos of different sizes and weights - to carry on the Atlas name that dates back a half-century.
AA GYM MENGHEMBUSKAN NAFAS TERAKHIR SERIES
It’ll be the sixth flight for the rocket, which debuted in May 2000 and boasts a flawless success record.Atlas 3 was conceived as a short-lived, stepping-stone program between the older Atlas 2 series of rockets and the next-generation Atlas 5 vehicles. The NRO is the government agency responsible for operating the nation’s fleet of spy satellites.A countdown dress rehearsal was accomplished last Friday and the hush-hush payload was mounted atop the rocket Monday.The upcoming mission represents not only the last use of Complex 36 by Lockheed Martin but also retirement of the rocket-maker’s Atlas 3 booster. Its finale launch will be a middle-of-the-night affair, with the exact time to be concealed until next week.The secrecy has been imposed by the launch’s customer - the U.S. Photo: Pat Corkery/Lockheed MartinBuilt in the early 1960s, launch pad 36B has supported 75 Atlas missions. Complex 36 will see its final Atlas rocket launch on Thursday. Dozens of satellites that expanded communications around the globe and bolstered American national security.These diverse missions are linked in history by launching from the same Cape Canaveral launch pad, which hosts its last Atlas rocket liftoff on Thursday, January 27. A robotic explorer that will encounter a star four million years from now. A craft that gave mankind its only up-close look at Mercury. – The first probe to orbit another planet. The following story was written prior to the delay.CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. Note: Launch has been rescheduled for Feb.