The mighty Titan — a pillar in American rocketry for five decades — flew into orbit for the final time on October 19, 2005, capping a distinguished career of heavy-lifting that has spanned America’s space age.
SpaceX plans to set up landing pads on abandoned launch sites at Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg Air Force Base in a step toward the company’s vision for eventual recovery and reuse of rocket boosters.
“We had a terrific ride into space aboard the United Launch Alliance’s Delta 2 vehicle. They deposited us exactly where we wanted to be with with accuracy and precision,” said Kent Kellogg, NASA’s SMAP project manager.
The United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket lifts off with NASA’s SMAP observatory at 6:22 a.m. local time on Saturday, Jan. 31 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
The United Launch Alliance Delta 2 was launched Saturday at 6:22 a.m. local time with NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
The ever-dependable Delta 2 rocket continued its flawless service to NASA and Earth sciences Saturday with the launch of a $916 million environmental probe focused on producing global maps of soil moisture from space.
NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive satellite blasts off aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket Saturday, launching into orbit on a three-year mission to measure moisture levels in Earth’s soils.
The mobile service tower is retracted from the United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket at Vandenberg Air Force Base in preparation for the first launch attempt of NASA’s SMAP spacecraft.