was about to call to Helen to ask if there was a problem when she started counting: “Stand by for launch . . . five . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . release!” It was a strange sensation, a strange sight. The ALARM booster just seemed to shrink in size as it fell out of the launch chamberlt continued to fly directly underneath the open doors as if it were frozen in place. The doors stayed open long enough so that Jon could see the X-wing begin to move slightly to provide a bit of stability as it cruised along. The DC-10’s tail heeled upward as the twenty-one-ton rocket dropped awayit would take a minute for the movable counterweight tank to rebalance the plane. The crew members in the cargo section held on firmly to handholds in the ceiling or bulkheads as their bodies were pressed to the floor. “Rocket away, rocket away, ” Helen called out. Immediately, the DC- 10 began a 30-degree bank turn to the left, and Roosevelt-I was lost from the bomb-bay camera. Helen switched to a wingtip camera to monitor the motor firing. “We’re clear from booster’s flight path, ” Kaddiri called out. “Coming up on first-stage ignition… ready, ready… now. Like a giant stick of chalk drawing a fat white-yellow line across the sky, the first-stage motor of the ALARM booster ignited, and the rocket leaped ahead of the DC- 10 in a blur of motion. When the rocket was about a mile away, the X-wing scissored out until the wing was almost perpendicular to the rocket’s fuselage, and the ALARM booster reared its nose upward and began to climb. Nineteen seconds after launch, the booster was traveling almost twice the speed of sound and had recrossed its launch altitude as the wing generated lift. Seconds later, the rocket was lost from view, traveling too fast for the high-speed cameras to follow. “T plus thirty seconds, Roosevelt-One on course, all systems normal, passing one-twenty-K altitude, velocity passing Mach three, ” Kaddiri reported. “Launch-chamber doors closed, chamber repressurized, ” one of the techs reported. “Ready to reload.” They were in no hurry to load Roosevelt-Two into position on this mission, but Masters liked to practice rapid-fire procedures to demonstrate that a multiple ALARM launch within a single launch window was possible. “T plus sixty seconds, fifteen seconds to first-stage burnout, ” Kaddiri reported. “Altitude one-eighty K, passing Mach six, pitch angle thirty degrees. All systems nominal.” Using the scissor wings to augment the motor’s thrust with lift, the booster climbed quickly through the atmosphere. As the air started to thin and less lift was being generated by the wings, they scissored back closer and closer to the booster’s fuselage until, just before first-stage motor burnout, the wings were fully retracted back along the body of the rocket. Seventy-six seconds after ignition, the first-stage motor burned out and the rear half of the fifty-feet-long booster, carrying the rear tailplane and the scissor wings, separated from the rest of the booster. The rocket was at the very edge of space, nearly 250, 000 feet above Earth. Nine seconds later, the second-stage motor ignited, sending the booster streaking into space. The first-stage section began its controlled tumble to Earth, and four recovery parachutes opened at sixty thousand feet above ground. A specially equipped Air Force C-130 cargo plane would snag the parachute in midair and reel the firststage booster in somewhere over the northern section of the White Sands Missile Test Range. This recovery procedure would allow them to use the ALARM booster system anywhere in the world without hazard to people on the ground, even near heavily populated areas. The second- and third-stage motor sections would re-enter the atmosphere from space and burn up. “Good second-stage ignition, ” Kaddiri reported. “Altitude passing three hundred forty K, velocity passing Mach eleven, on course.” She turned to Foch with a look of concern, then at Masters. “Second-stage nozzle reports a gimbal-limit fault, Jon. It might have over corrected for winds at altitude and sustained some damage.” Masters had a stopwatch counting down to the second-stage burnout. “Forty seconds to second-stage burnout, ” he muttered. “Is it still hitting a stop? Is it correcting its course?”
“Continuous faults on the nozzle, ” Kaddiri replied. “It’s maintaining course, but it might slip out of stage- three tolerance limits.” The third-stage section of the booster was much smaller than the first two stages, designed only to increase the booster’s velocity to Mach 25 for orbital insertion; it could not perform large course corrections. If the second-stage motor could not hold the booster within a gradually narrowing trajectory corridor, the booster could slip into a useless and possibly dangerous orbit. Numerous “safe” orbits were computed where the NIRTSat satellites would not interfere with other spacecraft and where they could be “stored” until it was possible to retrieve them, but it was usually very difficult to place a malfunctioning booster into a precomputed “safe” orbit. If it could not be placed in a position where it was not a hazard to other satellites, it could damage or destroy dozens of other payloads and re-enter the atmosphere over a populated area. Before that could be allowed tohappen, they would destroy it. That was exactly what Foch had in mind as he opened the plastic-guarded safety cover on the command destruct panel. Foch, Kaddiri, Masters, and the ground safety officers at the White Sands range could command the ALARM booster to self-destruct at any time; now that the booster was flying, Masters had very little authority over its disposition-he could not override a “Destruct” command. “I told you this might happen, Doctor Masters, ” Foch said. “The booster was obviously shaken off course by the strong, high-altitude winds, and it sustained some damage and can’t correct its course enough.” But Masters sat back and, to everyone’s surprise, put his feet up on the control console. “Ten seconds to second-stage burnout, ” he said, sipping his soda. “Sit back, relax. It’ll stay in the groove long enough.”
“The decision doesn’t rest with you this time, Masters, ” Foch fumed. “The command’ll come from White Sands or the Air Force Space Tracking Center. White Sands will initiate the destruct sequence. If their command doesn’t work, I initiate mine.”
“Well, well.. .” Masters laughed, pointing to the computer monitor. Foch turned to look. “Second-stage burnout, and Roosevelt-One is still on course.” They studied the readouts for a few more moments. The booster, headed into a polar orbit over Canada, was picked up by Alaskan radar sites as it continued its climb to its orbit altitude. Soon its orbital insertion would be picked up by space-tracking radars at San Miguel Air Force Station in the Philippines, and the NIRTSats would begin their work. After a while, Masters turned to Foch with a smug expression. “Minor course corrections being made, but it’s right on course. Expect third-stage ignition in four minutes.” He took another big Sip of soda, then punctuated his victory with a loud burp. “I’d get your finger away from that destruct button if I were you, Colonel. The Navy wouldn’t appreciate you blowing up a perfectly good booster.” CLARK AIR BASE, ANGELES, PAMPANGA PROVINCE REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES PHILIPPINES INDEPENDENCE DAY SUNDAY, 12 JUNE 1994, 1147 HOURS LOCAL One of the first major uses of Masters’ new NIRTSat constellation of real-time position and communications reporting capability for Air Force aircraft was a few days later-and it was the most inauspicious. It was the day the last of the United States Air Force’s aircraft departed the Philippines as the Americans turned over their military bases to full Filipino control. The satellites would control the last of the American fighters and tankers as they withdrew from the Philippines to bases in Japan and Guam. Headquarters of the U.S. Air Force’s Thirteenth Air Force at Clark Air Base, sixty-five miles north of Manila, was in a magnificent white six-story stucco building, at the end of a long grassy mall between the NCO and officers’ family-housing areas. Both sides of the mall along the Weston and Wirt Davis avenues had once been lined with flags of the numerous military units of several nations that had liberated the Philippines from Japan during World War II, standing as a monument to those who had died defending this island nation against the Axis. Now the sixty poles were vacant except for the three flagpoles at the head of the mall opposite the headquarters building- the flags of the Philippines, the United States, and the U.S. Air Force. From his vantage point on the review stand in front of the headquarters building, Major General Richard Stone noticed that someone had lowered the American flag down several feet from the top of its staff-it almost appeared to be at half staff. Perhaps it should be so. Stone’s aide, Colonel Michael Krieg, stepped over to his boss and handed him a Teletype report. “Latest on that skirmish near the Spratlys, sir, ” Krieg said. “The Chinese are still claiming they were attacked by heavy antiship weapons. Twentyseven Filipinos dead, six Americans, and five missing.”
“Christ, ” Stone sighed. He had watched the repercussions build over the last week since the skirmish. “Do the Chinese expect anyone to believe that? Why the hell would an oil company have any antiship missiles on an oil- exploration platform?”
“They did have machine guns, sir. Twenty-millimeter. World War Two vintage American Mk 4. Pretty good operating condition, too-before the Chinese melted it with a Fei Lung-7.”
“Idiots, ” Stone muttered. “Opening up on a warship like that. So what are the Chinese doing now?”
“Laying low, ” Krieg replied. “Only occasional incursions in the Spratly Island neutral zone. President Mikaso’s government is being very understanding about it so far. Vice President Samar issued a statement calling for reparations from the Chinese.”
“Lots of luck.” “Vice President Teguina called for an investigation-not of the Chinese, but of Mikaso’s government, ” Krieg added. “Of Mikaso $ government? Not the Chinese? ‘Coursethat’s typical, ” Stone said. “Whatever it takes to distance himself from Mikaso.. . just as he’s always done. Anything for a headline.”
“The little bastard’s got balls, that’s for sure. Major General Stone grunted. “You can say that againTeguina loves to stir things up. Now, what do we have out there keeping an eye on things?” Krieg looked at his boss with a look of pure concern. “In two hours-nothing.”
