This time the 2nd stage shut down too soon when it was firing for the 2nd time. The big Orion 3 telecommunications satellite and its attached second stage then slowly tumbled 3 times before the rocket's guidance system righted the craft. The reason for the IUS failure on April 9 during a Titan launch has meanwhile been traced back to a staging problem. At 6 h 30 m after liftoff, Stage 1 and Stage 2 of the IUS were scheduled to separate.
Telemetry shows several anomalous events that occurred during the separation sequence.
Specifically, although two separation break wires indicate separation had occurred, a separate connector continued to carry signals, indicating the separation was not complete. The difficult task now is to determine precisely what happened and why this sequence of events occurred. No news are available yet on the investigation into the 2nd Titan failure of the month when a Centaur misfired. Boeing's news releases and other information on the botched launch. Delta 3 Homepage Complete Florida Today coverage.