History
All United States expendable launch vehicles were planned to be phased out in favor of the Space Shuttle, but the Challenger disaster of 1986 led to Delta development being restarted. The Delta II was specifically designed to accommodate the GPS Block II series of positioning satellites. As of October 2011, Delta IIs have successfully launched 149 projects, including several NASA missions to Mars:
- Mars Global Surveyor in 1996
- Mars Pathfinder in 1996
- Mars Climate Orbiter in 1998
- Mars Polar Lander in 1999
- Mars Odyssey in 2001
- Mars Exploration Rovers (MER-A, Spirit and MER-B, Opportunity) in 2003
- Mars Phoenix Lander in 2007
Delta II manufacturing, assembly and integration currently take place at facilities in Decatur, Alabama; Harlingen, Texas; San Diego, California; and Denver, Colorado.
Read more about this topic: Delta II
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The custard is setting; meanwhile
I not only have my own history to worry about
But am forced to fret over insufficient details related to large
Unfinished concepts that can never bring themselves to the point
Of being, with or without my help, if any were forthcoming.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“Most events recorded in history are more remarkable than important, like eclipses of the sun and moon, by which all are attracted, but whose effects no one takes the trouble to calculate.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The History of the world is not the theatre of happiness. Periods of happiness are blank pages in it, for they are periods of harmony—periods when the antithesis is in abeyance.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)