Delta IV Heavy rocket delayed again, raising concerns of aging infrastructure
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
> While evacuating the shuttle, the crew was doused with water from the pad deluge system, which was activated due to a hydrogen fire on the launch pad caused by the free hydrogen (fuel) that had collected around the engine nozzles following the shutdown and engine anomaly. Because the fire was invisible to humans, had the astronauts used the normal emergency escape procedure across the service arm to the slidewire escape baskets, they would have run into the fire.
Whoa ◎﹏⊙. Not quite what I'd call ‘neat’.
As long as the D4H is flying, no matter infrequently, they need to maintain personnel, equipment, knowledge. A scrub requires defueling, refueling, maintenance, and all the infra associated around that,
Also since Vulcan development has started, most resources are being put into that, so the D4H stuff is being sidelined, even though its still launching critical missions