Titan IV The Titan IV family ( including the IVA and IVB ) of space booster s were used by the U . S . Air Force . They were launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station , Florida , and Vandenberg Air Force Base , California . At the time of its introduction , the Titan IV was the " largest unmanned space booster used by the Air Force . " The Titan IV was the last of the Titan family of rockets . It was retired in 2005 due to its high cost of operation . The final launch ( B - 30 ) from Cape Canaveral AFS occurred on April 29 , 2005 , and the final launch from Vandenberg AFB occurred on October 19 , 2005 . Lockheed Martin Space Systems built the Titan IVs near Denver , Colorado , under contract to the government . Features . The Titan IV was developed to provide assured capability to launch Space Shuttle – class payloads for the Air Force . The Titan IV could be launched with no upper stage , or either of two upper stages , the IUS ( Inertial Upper Stage ) , and the Centaur rocket upper stage . The Titan IV was made up of two large solid - fuel rocket boosters and a two - stage liquid - fueled core . The two storable liquid fuel core stages used Aerozine 50 fuel and nitrogen tetroxide oxidizer . These propellants are hypergolic ( ignite on contact ) and are liquids at room temperature , so no tank insulation is needed . This allows the launcher to be stored in a ready state for extended periods . However , both propellants are extremely toxic . The Titan IV could be launched from either coast : SLC - 40 or 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station near Cocoa Beach , FL and at SLC - 4E , at Vandenberg Air Force Base launch sites sixty miles north of Santa Barbara in California . Choice of launch site depended on mission parameters and mission goals . Background . The Titan rocket family was established in October 1955 when the Air Force awarded the Glenn L . Martin Company ( now part of Lockheed Martin ) a contract to build an intercontinental ballistic missile ( SM - 68 ) . It became known as the Titan I , the nation ' s first two - stage ICBM , and replaced the Atlas ICBM as the second underground , vertically stored , silo - based ICBM . Both stages of the Titan I used liquid oxygen and RP - 1 as propellants . A subsequent version of the Titan family , the Titan II , was similar to the Titan I , but was much more powerful . Designated as LGM - 25C , the Titan II was the largest missile developed for the USAF at that time . The Titan II had newly developed engines which used Aerozine 50 and nitrogen tetroxide as fuel and oxidizer . The Titan IV was flown in a variety of configurations depending on the launch needs , including no upper stages , IUS stages , or Centaur stages . Titan III development began in 1964 with the Titan IIIA . Years later , the Titan IVB evolved from the Titan III family and is similar to the Titan 34D . While the launcher family had had an extremely good reliability record in its first two decades , this began to change in the 1980s with the loss of a Titan 34D in 1985 followed by the disastrous explosion of another in 1986 due to a SRM failure . In 1993 , a naval reconnaissance satellite was lost when a Titan IV was destroyed at T + 100 seconds into the launch due to another SRM malfunction . 1998 saw the worst accident when a launch of a military ELINT satellite from Cape Canaveral failed around 70 seconds into the flight . An electrical failure caused the Titan to suddenly pitch downward , the resulting aerodynamic stress causing one of the SRMs to separate . The onboard destruct system automatically triggered , blowing the launch vehicle to pieces in a spectacular explosion . The launch was the final launch of the Titan IVA , and was intended to be so prior to its explosion . In 1988 and 1989 , The R . M . Parsons Company designed and built a full scale steel tower and deflector facility , which was used to test the Titan IV Solid Rocket Motor Upgrade ( SRMU ) . The launch and the effect of the SRMU thrust force on the space shuttle vehicle were modeled . To evaluate the magnitude of the thrust force , the SRMU was connected to the steel tower through load measurement systems and launched in - place . It was the first full scale test conducted to simulate the effects of the SRMU on the main space shuttle vehicle . In the early 1980s , General Dynamics conceived of using a Space Shuttle to lift a Lunar Module into orbit and then launch a Titan IV rocket with an Apollo - type Service Module to rendezvous and dock — making a moonship for a lunar landing . The plan required the Space Shuttle and Titan IV to use aluminum - lithium fuel tanks instead of aluminum to make a greater payload weight for takeoff . The original plan never came to fruition , but in the 1990s the Shuttle was converted to aluminum - lithium tanks to rendezvous with the highly inclined orbit of the Russian Mir Space Station . The Titan IVB became obsolete with the advent of the Atlas V rocket and the Delta IV heavy rocket booster launch vehicles in 2005 . A Titan IVB launched NASA ' s Cassini Saturn orbiter on October 15 , 1997 . Program Cost . In 1990 , the Titan IV Selected Acquisition Report estimated the total cost for the acquisition of 65 Titan IV vehicles over a period of 16 years to US $ 18 . 3 billion ( inflation adjusted US $ billion in ) . The last Titan 401a launch that exploded cost 1 . 3 billion dollars .