Current Status
As of 2009, derivatives of the 10-foot-diameter (3.0 m) Centaur-3, with either one or two RL-10A4-2 engines, continue to be used as the upper stage of the Atlas V EELV rocket, the successor of the Titan-Centaur configuration.
Although ULA has an extensive launch manifest for future Centaur flights, ULA has been working on an upper stage design concept that would bring the Delta and Centaur stages together into a single new cryogenic second stage design. The Advanced Common Evolved Stage is intended as a lower-cost, more-capable and more-flexible upper stage that would supplement, and perhaps replace, the existing ULA (Lockheed Martin legacy) Centaur and the ULA (Boeing legacy) Delta Cryogenic Second Stage (DCSS) upper stage vehicles.
Read more about this topic: Centaur (rocket Stage)
Famous quotes containing the words current and/or status:
“It is not however, adulthood itself, but parenthood that forms the glass shroud of memory. For there is an interesting quirk in the memory of women. At 30, women see their adolescence quite clearly. At 30 a womans adolescence remains a facet fitting into her current self.... At 40, however, memories of adolescence are blurred. Women of this age look much more to their earlier childhood for memories of themselves and of their mothers. This links up to her typical parenting phase.”
—Terri Apter (20th century)
“The censorship method ... is that of handing the job over to some frail and erring mortal man, and making him omnipotent on the assumption that his official status will make him infallible and omniscient.”
—George Bernard Shaw (18561950)