A short trip for a Delta IV Heavy rocket served as the prelude for a much longer trek this spring at Vandenberg Air Force Base.
Stretched out on its transporter trailer equipped with 36 wheels, the United Launch Alliance booster recently traveled from the Horizontal Integration Facility to its stand at Space Launch Complex-6 on South Base.
Upon arrival, the hulking rocket was raised into a standing position in anticipation of its blastoff later this spring.
The Delta IV Heavy employs three common booster cores side by side to give the rocket more power for carrying monstrous-sized payloads into space.
The trip to the launch pad was one of many key milestones before the rocket’s countdown to zero and its longer trip to place a top-secret payload in space for the National Reconnaissance Office for a mission dubbed NROL-82.
NRO representatives remain mum about their satellites’ role beyond calling them critical national security payloads.
The Delta IV Heavy’s components have spent the past 10 months readying for the trek to the launch pad.
Following a sea-faring voyage from its Decatur, Alabama, manufacturing plant to the Central Coast, the Delta IV Heavy arrived at Vandenberg last spring, according to ULA.
Unloading the vessel dubbed R/S RocketShip took a bit longer than planned due to an uncooperative ocean.
Since then, the rocket components have undergone assorted tests to prepare for flight.
Still to come is installation of the cargo — typically the size of a bus — scheduled to ride inside the rocket’s nosecone, or payload fairing.
Once fully assembled, the Delta IV Heavy rocket will stand some 23-stories tall.
After the payload completes processing, the spacecraft will be placed atop the rocket and the nosecone will be snapped into place.
That step won’t occur until after the launch team completes “a wet dress rehearsal,” which involves conducting a practice that includes loading fuel and achieving other pre-launch milestones, but remaining in place once the countdown reaches zero.
This will be ULA’s 13th Delta IV Heavy and the fourth from Vandenberg.
The West Coast’s previous Delta IV Heavy rocket blasted off in January 2019, also to carry an NRO payload into space.
After a light year in 2020 due to few satellites needing rides to space aboard rockets launched from Vandenberg, the pace will pick up in 2021. This spring also may bring the debut of a booster built by a fledgling firm, Firefly Aerospace.
Vandenberg recently kicked off its 2021 launch year with the first test of an unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile.
— Noozhawk North County editor Janene Scully can be reached at jscully@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.