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To: djane who wrote (5853)	4/23/1999 12:19:00 AM
From: Steven Rachbach	Respond to of 10852

From Florida Today: Thursday, April 22, 1999 Update for 10:51 p.m. EDT It will be at least Saturday night before another attempt will be made to launch the Delta 3 rocket and Orion 3 communications satellite, said Jay Witzling, Boeing's director of Delta and Titan rocket fairing programs. Tonight's attempt was stopped at T-minus zero seconds when neither the twin vernier steering engines nor the first stage main engine ignited. Engineers say the terminal sequence software that controls the final 22 seconds of the countdown did not send the engine start command as planned at T-minus 2 seconds. It is yet unknown why the command was not sent. Engine ignition begins at T-minus 5 seconds when a Boeing engineer sends a computer command to enable the engine start sequence. The command permits the controlling software to begin the engine start process at T-minus 2 seconds with ignition of the two vernier engines followed by first stage main engine start. The six ground-start solid boosters would then light at T-0 for liftoff once the other liquid-fueled engines were firing. The terminal sequence software is unique to the Delta 3 rocket, and is not used for Delta 2 launches. For Delta 2, a launch team member triggers a switch and starts the engine ignition process instead of computers performing the function.