Titan without top stage

by Jean-Jacques Serra
The selecting of the launcher for the manned Gemini flight was profitable to Titan 2 because of its capacity to orbit the necessary load (3.5 tons), its ease of use with stockable propellant and it's reliability. Only little modifications were made to enable it to launch manned capsules, and the motors (v7) had the same performances as v5.

After a suborbital flight in 1964 and a non piloted one in early 1965 ten manned capsules from the Gemini program were launched from Cap Canaveral between March 1965 and November 1966. All were orbited correctly.

In early 1986 Martin Marietta was granted a contract to evolve some retired Titan 2 ICBM into Titan 2 SLV. The first of those was launched in September 1988 from vandenberg in G (or 23G) version. The main modifications involve the cap and the the guidance.

Two other versions were proposed: Titan 2B (basic), a simplified version which keeps the original cap, and Titan 2S (Solid Thrust Augmented) which get 2 to 8 Castor 4A solid boosters.

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Titan 2 launches

#	Launch id	Payload	Launch Date	Site	Type	Status/Comment (orbit in perigee x apogee x inclination x period)
1		Gemini 1	8 Apr 1964	CC	Titan-2 Gemini
2		Gemini 2	19 Jan 1965*	CC	Titan-2 Gemini
3		Gemini 3	23 Mar 1965	CC	Titan-2 Gemini
4		Gemini 4	3 Jun 1965	CC	Titan-2 Gemini
5		Gemini 5 / REP	21 Aug 1965	CC	Titan-2 Gemini
6		Gemini 7	4 Dec 1965	CC	Titan-2 Gemini
7		Gemini 6	15 Dec 1965	CC	Titan-2 Gemini
8		Gemini 8	16 Mar 1966	CC	Titan-2 Gemini
9		Gemini 9	3 Jun 1966	CC	Titan-2 Gemini
10		Gemini 10	18 Jul 1966	CC	Titan-2 Gemini
11		Gemini 11	12 Sep 1966	CC	Titan-2 Gemini
12		Gemini 12	11 Nov 1966	CC	Titan-2 Gemini
13, G1	88078	Singleton 1	5 Sep 1988	V	Titan-2(23)G
14, G2	89072	Singleton 2	5 Sep 1989	V	Titan-2(23)G
15, G3	92023	Singleton 3	25 Apr 1992	V	Titan-2(23)G
16, G5	n/a	Landsat 6	5 Oct 1993	V 4W	Titan-2(23)G Star-37XFP-ISS	Failure: Star-37XFP-ISS kick-motor malfunctioned
17, G11	94004	Clementine 1 / DSPSE-ISA [Star-37FM]	25 Jan 1994	V	Titan-2(23)G
18, G6	97012	DMSP B5D2-9	4 Apr 1997	V	Titan-2(23)G Star-37S-ISS
19, G12	98030	NOAA 15	13 May 1998 at 15:52 UT	V 4W	Titan-2(23)G Star 37XFP	#12 ?
20, G7	99034	Quickscat	20 Jun 1999 at 02:15 UT	V 4W	Titan-2(23)G
21, G8	99067	DMSP B5D3-1	12 Dec 1999 at 17:38 UT	V 4W	Titan-2(23)G
22, G13	00055	NOAA 16	21 Sep 2000 at 10:22 UT	V 4W	Titan-2(23)G
23, G14	02032	NOAA 17	24 Jun 2002 at 18:23 UT	V 4W	Titan-2(23)G
24, G4	03001	Coriolis	6 Jan 2003 at 14:19 UT	V 4W	Titan-2(23)G
25	03048	DMSP B5D3-2	18 Oct 2003 at 16:17 UT	V 4W	Titan-2(23)G

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