Basic Titan 3A core, originally developed for Titan 3C, with Agena D upper stage replacing Transtage. Titan 23B American orbital launch vehicle. However the final decision was to develop the more-capable Titan 3C with 5 segment, 120 inch diameter solid rocket boosters.

The 100 inch segmented boosters had already been ground-fired by Aerojet. The progenitor of the Titan 3 was this design, which used two, 3 segment, 100 inch diameter solid rocket boosters. It differed in having a lengthened second stage and a 4 m diameter payload shroud to handle shuttle-class or Ariane-type dual payloads. Commercial version of Titan 34D military booster. The Martin Barbarian was a 4.57 m diameter Titan vehicle (instead of the customary 3.05 m) with four LR-87 engines on the first stage, and a single LR-87 engine on the second stage.Ĭommercial Titan 3 American orbital launch vehicle. These earlier studies were combined with new concepts for tank construction and materials. Martin and Aerojet turned to their work 20 years earlier on advanced Titans for the MOL program. The Zenith Star space-based chemical laser missile defense weapon required a launch vehicle capable of placing a 45,000 kg payload into low earth orbit. Whatever trouble NASA managed to get itself into, the Titan was still there to keep its planetary exploration program going.īarbarian MM American heavy-lift orbital launch vehicle. Titans have been used instead to launch unmanned military spacecraft, ranging from heavy photoreconnaissance platforms in low earth orbit to geosynchronous communications, missile launch detection, and ELINT satellites.Īfter NASA junked the Saturn launch vehicle family in the mid-1970's, and the Challenger disaster in the 1980's, Titans were used for launching NASA deep-space probes. All of these projects were cancelled in turn. It was originally conceived as a carrier of manned military spacecraft - first the X-20A Dynasoar, then the Gemini B and Manned Orbiting Laboratory, and finally lifting body spaceplanes in support of MOL follow-on space stations. Whatever the controversies at its genesis, the Titan has outlived the Saturn and will continue in use in the 21st century. However USAF 'ownership' (no NASA claims of priority) and the NIH (Not Invented Here) syndrome were probably more important factors. The reasons given for developing the booster in parallel with the NASA Saturn I of the same class were that the solid fuel boosters and storable (although corrosive and toxic) liquid propellants of the core provided a vehicle with improved readiness compared to the Saturn. Air Force requirements growth over the years drove its costs up - the Ariane using similar technology provided lower-cost access to space.ĪKA: HGM-25A HTM-25B LGM-25 LGM-25C SM-68. Although conceived as a low-cost, quick-reaction system, Titan was not successful as a commercial launch vehicle. It was finally replaced by the USAF's EELV boosters, the Atlas V and Delta IV.

Titan outlived the competing NASA Saturn I launch vehicle and the Space Shuttle for military launches. The designs finally put into production were derived from the Titan II ICBM. The Titan launch vehicle family was developed by the United States Air Force to meet its medium lift requirements in the 1960's.

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