DM-F3 Delta III Demonstration Flight Team Delta Patch

The Roman numeral III in the triangle on this patch is the Delta III, and DM-F3 was its third and last flight, launched from Cape Canaveral's Space Launch Complex 17B on August 23, 2000. DM-F3 stands for Delta Mission, Flight 3. It flew with no paying customer and no working satellite, only an inert test payload built to the weight of a large communications satellite. The two Delta III flights before it had both been lost, and this one went up to prove the vehicle from end to end. This patch commemorates the team that put it back on the pad and the flight that did the job.

The Delta III was the 8930 configuration, with nine strap-on solid rocket motors around the first stage and a new cryogenic upper stage. Its first flight, on August 27, 1998, ended in the loss of the Galaxy 10 satellite, and the second, on May 5, 1999, left the Orion 3 satellite in an unusable orbit after an upper stage engine problem. For DM-F3 the team flew the Orion 3 profile again so the data could be compared event for event. Liftoff came at 7:05 a.m. Eastern, about five minutes late for an out-of-spec temperature reading, and about 36 minutes later the dummy payload separated into a geosynchronous transfer orbit at the low end of its target range. The upper stage hardware it tested was shared with the Delta IV that followed.

The patch is a 3.5 by 4 inch shape cut to the outline of a globe on a stand, with a white stitched border and a cut edge. The globe is black with a white grid of latitude and longitude lines. At its center is a blue triangle outlined in red, the Greek letter delta, with a white III inside it for the Delta III. A red loop swings behind the triangle like an orbit path, and a yellow and black arrowhead points up and away to the right. On the yellow stand below, DM-F3 is stitched in red above Team Delta in black. It has a sew-on backing.

The Delta family has launched from the Cape since 1960, and DM-F3 was the 280th Delta launch. Delta III flew only three times, and the people who worked it went to the pad knowing the first two had not gone their way. Flying a third time with nothing but a test payload on top was a statement of confidence in the hardware and in each other. The vehicle reached orbit, the data came home, and the upper stage work carried forward into Delta IV. That is what Team Delta put on this patch.

It fits a shadow box with Delta II or Delta IV launch patches, or a frame next to a photo from Complex 17 at the Cape. It is also a good gift for someone who worked Delta launches in Florida or Huntington Beach. Three flights, one rocket and a team that went back to the pad.