Centaur Rocket System Costs - Atlas/Centaur launch $100,000,000 - Titan/Centaur $250,000,000 or more Air Force uses launch vehicles for military spacecraft. Titan/Centaur. Payloads - communications, reconnaissance satellites. Expensive cost $100 million to billions of dollars. Reliability Improvement by Air Force - $157 million study - Contractors propose improvements in open-ended way - Created list of 50 to 100 items - Reduced to 30 items via cost/benefit analysis - 12 items pertained to vehicle - 3 items pertained to engine NASA's role in changes: 1. Track changes to system 2. Provide technologies that might be applied 3. Corporate memory Manufacturing of Centaur Pratt and Whitney builds engines in West Palm Beach General Dynamics put engines on vehicle in California (San Diego?~) Martin Marietta bought General Dynamics MM puts engine on in Denver Vehicle is launched at Kennedy Engines are shipped commercial air to Denver. Sometimes trucked there but this is bad for the engines. The completed vehicle is transported to Kennedy via Air Force (MAC?) C5A. Centaur falls back to earth in a year or two - high orbits stay indefinitely.