Re: Pegasus rocket status
John C. Broman, Jr. (john.broman@gsfc.nasa.gov)
Wed, 26 Jun 1996 16:12:31 -0400
At 03:02 PM 6/26/96 -0500, Paul Maley wrote:
>
>Kurt just noted that day 155 is the last elset for 23106. Well, on that day
>(June 3), the rocket blew up and there are many, many uncatalogued pieces of
>debris.
The JSC orbital debris team has reported that the HAPS stage (hydrazine aux.
prop. sys.) from the STEP 2 mission (Standard Pegasus, B-52 drop) has
exploded in low earth orbit (625 km) into approx. 150 pieces which are being
tracked in orbits ranging from 300 to 1600 km. During the STEP 2 mission
(5/94) the HAPS failed to burn to depletion (275 sec. instead of 300 sec.)
leaving hydrazine and nitrogen in the tanks of the stage and delivering the
payload to a lower orbit than desired. The explosion occurred sometime
around 6/3/96 and is under investigation. No definite cause for the
explosion has been identified.
___________________________________________
John C. Broman, Jr.
Orbital Launch Services Project Office
Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 470
john.broman@gsfc.nasa.gov
___________________________________________