Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 3, 1993 TAG: 9308030221
SECTION: NATL/INTL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Medium
"It vaporized," said Sgt. John Dendy, a spokesman at Vandenberg Air Force Base, on the coast about 140 miles northwest of Los Angeles.
Lt. Col. Phil Johnson said the rocket was launched from Vandenberg at 12:59 p.m. PDT and exploded two minutes later over the Pacific Ocean.
The debris fell harmlessly into the Pacific Ocean, he said.
An investigation was planned to determine the cause of the blast, Air Force spokesman Ed Parsons said.
The 200-foot-tall Titan IV consisted of two 110-foot-tall, solid-fueled booster rockets strapped to the two-stage liquid-fueled rocket. The boosters appeared to separate prematurely just before the explosion, Col. Frank Stirling, manager of the Titan IV program, said by phone from Vandenberg.
The Air Force refused to identify the payload. But it probably was a Lacrosse imaging radar spy satellite, said John Pike, space policy analyst for the Federation of American Scientists in Washington.
The explosion is "a major setback for the Air Force and the Titan program," Pike said. "It's our single most important military launch vehicle and it's a program that has had a multitude of difficulties in the past several years."
But Stirling downplayed the significance of the explosion, saying it was too soon to measure the impact of the accident on the program.
"It's certainly a major disappointment," he said.
The Air Force turned to the Titan IV as its primary means of launching spy satellites and other military spacecraft after space shuttle Challenger blew up in 1986, killing seven crew members.
Since June 1989, the Air Force successfully launched six Titan IVs with secret payloads, including three that blasted off from Vandenberg and three from Cape Canaveral, Fla., Parsons said.
by CNB