HILL AIR FORCE BASE, Utah -- Work by the 581st Missile Maintenance Squadron at Hill Air Force Base became part of a historic Minotaur 4 rocket launch November 2010 from Kodiak, Alaska. The Air Force's experimental STP-S26 (the Space Test Program's 26th launch) mission demonstrated new space technologies, including command and control, atmospheric sensors and satellite and deployment systems.
The squadron refurbished and repurposed three Peacekeeper ICBM solid rocket motors then transported them to the launch site by truck and barge. The final results of the 1,000 hours of labor went up in a dramatic sunset launch that is featured in a You Tube video.
The work by the six 581st technicians (Nate Bailey, Jeff Williams, Tim Louth, Carl Flinders, Jesse Haupt and Jeff Smith) helped save project costs -- $170 million versus an estimated $1 billion.
"We brought the decommissioned Peacekeeper first, second and third stage motors from storage to our facility and inspected them and checked them for leaks," Williams said. "We then sent it to computed tomography, and after they checked it, we did a functional test to make sure everything was up to speed and working right."
The tests looked at the rocket motors from top to bottom -- cables, flight controls, stress packages and ordnance packages. "We also looked at the destruct package," Williams said. "If the mission should 'go south' on us, they can use the destruct package to abort the mission and destroy the missile. Of course, withthe payload, that's something they don't want to do." The launch vehicle, built by Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., was based on the three Peacekeeper motors and a fourth stage powered by an Alliant Techsystems Orion 38 solid rocket motor.
It was packed with seven satellites and 16 experiments, and it was the first orbital launch from the site since 2001. Also on board was the first Fast, Affordable Science and Technology Satellite -- or FASTSat -- carrying atmospheric experiments.
The Hill technicians are part of the Rocket System Launch Program and worked with scientists and engineers to prepare the stages for launch. "There were some modifications beyond the normal configuration of the stages," Williams said. "For one, these stages were painted before being transported -- regular ICBMs aren't painted.
Once they're configured, the customer comes and does a walk-around, OKs the missile and then it's shipped." In addition to the stage preparation, the 581st missile maintenance shops in Building 847 prepared the transport vehicles. The first stage weighs 120,000pounds, the second is 63,000 poundsand the third is 17,000 pounds, so the vehicles have to be capable of carrying wide, heavy loads and maintain stability.
Getting them to Alaska
Transporting the motors to Kodiak Island, Alaska, located on the state's southern coast, took seven days by commercial and government owned "heavy haulers" and barge. The trip was influenced by road and sea conditions and involved not only the Air Force, but also state highway patrol units and the Coast Guard.
The government truck, which carried the first stage, was supported by 50 tires -- 40 on the trailer and 10 on the cab. Along the way, the wheels had to be adjusted and aligned over some of the hills and curves by means of steerable axles that are controlled by the driver. "The whole thing has to be aligned so it doesn't 'crab walk' in the road," said Senior Master Sgt. Gary Smith, 518st squadron superintendent, who accompanied the motors to Alaska. "We wouldhave to stop, adjust the wheels and level the trailer to make sure it was good-togo down the road."
In one section of road, which had a 10 percent downhill grade and hairpin turns, the squadron used "wing walkers" -- employees that walked beside the trailer to make sure it was level and that it wasn't tilting too much. "The tractor actually has tilt meters so we know when we're exceeding our tilt as well," Smith said. "Another road was an 11 percent uphill grade. We actually had to get an assist from a Caterpillar 16G motor grader because the brakes on the truck weren't certified for that kind of load."
While the truck was able to creep up the hill, the grader tugged it to make sure it didn't slide backward. It took between five and six hours to travel the 46-mile distance through hilly countryon Kodiak Island at a speed of about 8 mph. That section, a state highway and the only highway on the island, was closed by the state during the transport.
And to get from Seattle to Kodiak, the motors were transported on barges. Two cranes were required to lift the motors from the truck to the barge, and the barge traffic had to be arranged according to the tides. The trip across the Pacific Ocean and Gulf of Alaska was about 1,400 miles or about 1,250 nautical miles. (The alternative would be traveling 2,770 road miles northwest through British Columbia and Yukon Territory and still needing to take a barge from Homer, Alaska to Kodiak).
To prepare for the cross-country trip, the squadron drove three other rocket stages -- filled with cement to equal the weight of the real thing -- along the planned route to make surethe roads could handle the weight and the transport would be possible, Smith said. "The people in this group are very lucky. Those who get to touch and have involvement in a project like this are about one-half of one-percent of the American population. Half of the world doesn't even know it exists.
There's a lot of money invested and the responsibility and trust to do it right -- 100 percent on time, 100 percent right. There's no room for error," said Brian McDonald, 581 MMXS flight chief. And despite all their work to prepare and transport the missile motors, none of the Hill employees were able to see the actual launch. Instead, they watched it from the Internet. "It's pretty impressive. Not only size alone and to see how fast it reacts -- it's not like how the movies portray it where the engine goes on and it takes a second -- it's instant. To be able to see each stage separate, it's something that people don't get to see -- you learn to respect it," Williams said.