{"id":16437,"date":"2015-03-27T20:44:17","date_gmt":"2015-03-27T12:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/delta-4-rocket-evolving-to-upgraded-main-engine\/"},"modified":"2015-03-27T20:44:17","modified_gmt":"2015-03-27T12:44:17","slug":"delta-4-rocket-evolving-to-upgraded-main-engine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/delta-4-rocket-evolving-to-upgraded-main-engine\/","title":{"rendered":"Delta 4 rocket evolving to upgraded main engine"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_5251\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5251\" style=\"width: 398px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5251\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/122.jpg\" alt=\"Credit: Carleton Bailie\/Boeing\" width=\"398\" height=\"640\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/122.jpg 398w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/122-187x300.jpg 187w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 398px) 100vw, 398px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-5251\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Credit: Carleton Bailie\/Boeing<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>CAPE CANAVERAL \u2014 When the next Delta 4 rocket flies in July, as well as all future ones to come, the enhanced RS-68A main engine will power the boosters off the launch pad.<\/p>\n<p>This week\u2019s successful Delta 4 launch that put a new GPS satellite into orbit marked the final launch of the original RS-68 model engine.<\/p>\n<p>The Aerojet Rocketdyne-built powerplants have flown 42 times in the RS-68 configuration, all successfully, and three times in the RS-68A version aboard one triple-body Delta 4-Heavy launch in June 2012.<\/p>\n<p>That flight three years ago lofted a classified National Reconnaissance Office payload in the debut launch of the upgraded engine on each of its three booster cores.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_5247\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5247\" style=\"width: 990px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5247\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/rs68a.jpg\" alt=\"Credit: Aerojet Rocketdyne\" width=\"990\" height=\"688\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/rs68a.jpg 990w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/rs68a-300x208.jpg 300w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/rs68a-768x534.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 990px) 100vw, 990px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-5247\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Credit: Aerojet Rocketdyne<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The RS-68A, fed with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, delivers 702,000 pounds of liftoff thrust, an increase of 39,000 pounds over the RS-68 engine. It is considered the world\u2019s most-powerful cryogenic engine.<\/p>\n<p>The A-model is seen as an evolution not a revolution from the basic RS-68 engine that has propelled Delta 4 rockets since 2002.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are no radical visual differences in either the look of the engine or the manner in which the rocket will fly,\u201d an official said in 2012.<\/p>\n<p>The internal turbomachinery has been modified to enable the engine to operate at a higher thrust level \u2014 108.5 instead of 102 percent \u2014 to provide extra performance, and improved combustion efficiency to achieve better miles-per-gallon fuel consumption.<\/p>\n<p>The RS-68A satisfied the Heavy Upgrade program to give additional lift capacity for the National Reconnaissance and its NROL-15 mission in 2012.<\/p>\n<p>Now, the engine is being phased into the rest of the Delta 4 fleet starting with the next flight. The extra power enables all various Medium configurations to evolve into a standardize structure instead of being tailor-built for a given launch, substantially streamlining factory operations.<\/p>\n<p>The next flight, targeted for July 21 from Cape Canaveral, will launch the seventh Wideband Global SATCOM spacecraft for the U.S. Air Force.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Credit: Carleton Bailie\/Boeing CAPE CANAVERAL \u2014 When the next Delta 4 rocket flies in July, as well as all future ones to come, the enhanced RS-68A main engine will power the boosters off the launch pad. This week\u2019s successful Delta 4 launch that put a new GPS satellite into orbit marked the final launch of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[864,3992,1688,4104,4105,750,3993],"class_list":["post-16437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-aerojet-rocketdyne","tag-delta-372","tag-delta-4","tag-rs-68","tag-rs-68a","tag-united-launch-alliance","tag-wgs-7"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16437"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16437\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}