Eighth Delay Ordered for Titan 3 Because Winds Again Are Too High

The maiden launching of a Titan 3 rocket carrying British and Japanese communications satellites was postponed Friday for another 24 hours because of high winds aloft, the eighth delay in 22 days for the hard-luck flight.

The $100-million rocket, the most powerful U.S. booster ever built as a commercial venture, had been scheduled for liftoff from launching complex 40. But the countdown was held at the T-minus-five-minute mark because of concern about upper-altitude winds.

Officials with rocket-builder Martin Marietta Astronautics Group then ordered a 24-hour delay.

“Today’s launch has been scrubbed because of high upper winds,” company spokesman Robert Gordon said. “The launch will be rescheduled for tomorrow.”

The goal of the long-awaited launching is the deployment of Skynet 4A, a British military communications satellite, and JCSat 2, a $150-million communications satellite owned by the Japan Communications Satellite Co. and Hughes Communications Inc.

The debut of the Titan 3 was scheduled for Dec. 7, but a computer programming problem forced Martin Marietta officials to order a 24-hour delay. The next six takeoff dates were missed because of bad weather, primarily higher-than-allowable winds aloft.

The first Titan 3 mission marks a milestone in the nation’s post-Challenger effort to build a commercial launching industry to compete with the European Ariane rocket and others being marketed by China and the Soviet Union.

Former President Ronald Reagan banned commercial satellites from the shuttle in the wake of the 1986 Challenger explosion--creating a large backlog of cargoes with no way to get into space--to encourage development of a private-sector launching industry.