The new missile of the Boeing Company, Delta 4 was inaugurated tonight with a successful launch from the air force base in Cape Canaveral. The rocket, which is as tall as a 20-story building, launched the Eutelsat W5 satellite into space
The new missile of the Boeing Company, Delta 4 was inaugurated tonight with a successful launch from the air force base in Cape Canaveral. The rocket, which is as tall as a 20-story building, launched the Eutelsat W5 satellite into space. The launch took place on Tuesday afternoon at 17:38 (00:39 Israel time on Wednesday already).
The mission, completed 37 minutes later, was greeted with joy and relief by company executives who had waited seven years for the launch of the rocket originally built for the US Air Force's Expendable Satellite Launcher (EELV) development program. The success of the launch was actually essential for the continuation of Boeing's activities in the field of space (see a link to a previous news item on the subject under the title Boeing warms up the engines).
This is the first commercial launch of the missile, when it was preceded by a test launch on October 14, 2002.
"Delta 4 rockets will be with us for a long time," said William Trafton, president of Boeing's launch services, the company responsible for marketing the launches with these rockets.
The success allows Boeing to return to the field after the failure to launch its previous missile, Delta 3 in 1998 when pieces of it fell to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Boeing now has a better chance to compete in the commercial satellite launch space.
Dan Collins, director of the Delta program at Boeing, says the current success, along with the August success of Lockheed Martin's Atlas-5 rocket, means the U.S. military can rely on those two factors for launch, something the Pentagon calls the "safe way to space."
We believe that choosing between two providers is a very important thing, said Robert Dickman, deputy director of the Office of National Intelligence and a retired Air Force general. Dickman is currently involved in military procurement in the field of space systems for the government.
