Air Force Begins Secret Titan Probe : Payload and Mission of Ill-Fated Rocket Remain ‘Classified’

Air Force officials and experts from the aerospace industry Monday began a secret investigation into the explosion of a Titan 34-D rocket above a launch pad here.

“It’s Air Force policy that all accident investigation boards are closed,” said Larry Hannon, a spokesman at the Air Force Space Division in Los Angeles. “That’s for planes or something like this.”

An interim board met right after the explosion Friday and the full board met for the first time Monday afternoon at the sprawling Air Force base in northern Santa Barbara County.

The $65-million Titan exploded just five seconds after launch Friday morning. Although the Air Force has not said what payload the missile was carrying, it was believed to be a KH-11 spy satellite for launch into a polar orbit that would take it over the Soviet Union. Unlike the aftermath of the Jan. 28 explosion of the space shuttle Challenger off Cape Canaveral, which killed seven astronauts, there will be no public hearings or updates on the investigation. Even the final report of the results may not be made public, Hannon said.

“It was a classified payload, going from a classified launch site, on a classified mission,” Hannon said.

Friday’s failure was the second involving a Titan missile out of Vandenberg in eight months. Last August a Titan 34-D also failed shortly after launch and the findings of an investigative board of aerospace experts and Air Force officials were never officially released. Air Force officials still have not issued any information on what happened to the rocket, but one source indicated that it was blown up by remote control as soon as the malfunction was discovered.

The board will be headed by Brig. Gen. Nathaniel Lindsey, commander of the Eastern Space and Missile Center at Patrick Air Force Base in Cocoa Beach, Fla. There will be 18 board members, composed of Air Force officers and civilian aerospace specialists from the Department of Defense, and six technical advisers from NASA and aerospace firms. The investigation will be conducted at Vandenberg.

The board will investigate all potential causes of the explosion, a spokesman said, including the propellants, solid fuel boosters and electronics. Sabotage has not been discounted.

Also Monday, Vandenberg officials met with representatives of local public safety agencies and agreed to let a civilian emergency services official be in the command post for all future launches.

“This would be an expert on who in the county should be contacted in the event of a mishap,” said Lt. Col. Alex Abela, a Vandenberg spokesman. “This would be an on-the-scene representative.”

Although there was a county official on the base at the time of Friday’s launch, he was not in the command post, Abela said.

The agreement to permit a Santa Barbara County government official to view the launches, which normally are classified, from the command post came at a meeting between Vandenberg officials and about 15 city, county and state officials.

Added Phone Lines

Vandenberg officials also decided to add telephone lines on the base exclusively for access by area police and fire departments. After Friday’s explosion, the base was inundated by calls from civilians and reporters and it was difficult for emergency services representatives to call Vandenberg, Abela said.

The meeting was attended by local police and fire department representatives, the California Highway Patrol and county emergency services personnel.

After Friday’s explosion, an immense cloud--saturated with highly corrosive unburned liquid rocket fuel--spread along the ground and then formed a cloud that reached about 10,000 feet before drifting across the southeast section of the base and then out to sea.

No one was reported seriously injured, but 74 people, mostly military personnel, were examined at the base hospital after complaining of burning eyes and skin.

Meanwhile, in San Francisco on Monday, William R. Graham, NASA’s acting administrator, told a convention of newspaper publishers that the loss of the space shuttle Challenger, bracketed by the failures of two Titan missiles, has exposed previously unseen vulnerabilities in the space program.

“The United States needs a space program that is broad and deep. . . .,” Graham said. “We are finding now some unexplored shallows in our space program.”

Graham, appearing in a panel discussion with other aerospace luminaries, said the chain of failures has shown that the nation does not have “enough breadth” in its space program.

“I don’t think we have enough national capability to overcome temporary setbacks, to deal with unexpected accidents like both of those were. And I think we are going to have to review the national space program in that light from this point forward.”

Fourth Shuttle Urged

Graham called for construction of a fourth shuttle orbiter to replace the Challenger and for additional unmanned rockets to send satellites and other payloads into space.

Asked if the Titan explosion posed a national security threat, Graham said there is “no question we have a serious national issue here, which will have serious national security implications if we don’t find a way out of this fairly soon.”

Miles Corwin reported from Santa Barbara and Peter H. King from San Francisco.