The idea of launching a major rocket like the Delta 3 with no customer -- after it has already flown -- is unprecedented in the modern commercial space era and reveals the pressure Boeing managers are under to prove to the aerospace community their rocket is flightworthy.

"In this business you need to be successful to market your products," Witzling said.

Millions more at stake

At stake in this bold maneuver by Boeing is hundreds of millions of dollars of future business for the Delta family of rockets.

Although Boeing is still signing up new customers for its Delta 3 and has a backlog of 18 missions to fly, company officials were becoming concerned about their ability to attract customers for the future Delta 4.

Analysts React to Boeing

Learn what financial analysts are saying about Boeing's big gamble with the Delta 3 rocket in this update from the nation's capitol. Click here!

Much of the technology for the Delta 4 - under development as part of the U.S. Air Force's Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program - is being tested on the Delta 3. So until the Delta 3 could be proven to work, faith in the Delta 4 might remain suspect.

With more than a year since the last Delta 3 launch, officials were becoming impatient.

After a search of potential customers for a quick ride on a Delta 3 rocket came up empty, officials decided it was worth the $85 million risk of flying a dummy payload to prove the commercially-developed booster can deliver a satellite into orbit.

"In part it was a business decision to move the program forward, in part a marketing decision to take advantage of those opportunities that are out there for both Delta 3 and Delta 4," said Boeing spokesman Walt Rice.

A dummy payload

Dubbed DM-F3, short for Delta Mission-Flight Three, the still-unproven Delta 3 rocket will carry ballast in the form of steel and aluminum, which has been assembled to mimic the way a communications satellite would ride on top of the booster.

The dummy payload known as DM-F3 sits on a Boeing factory floor. It is to ride atop a Delta 3 rocket launch planned this summer.

Shaped in the form of an empty spool of thread, the dummy payload's weight and center of gravity is the same as a regular satellite, and the contraption has been "tuned" so that it will vibrate at the same frequency as other satellites.

Those details are important because the Delta 3 rocket will have to steer a path into orbit based, in part, on how the satellite affects the rocket during the launch, said Rick Arvesen, Boeing's chief engineer for the Delta 2 and Delta 3 rockets.

After flying a normal mission into space, DM-F3 will wind up in an extreme egg-shaped orbit that varies in altitude between 115 and 16,100 miles above the Earth.

Arvesen said the orbit is being coordinated with the appropriate government agencies so that the inert payload doesn't become a menacing piece of orbital debris. Eventually the device's orbit will decay and it will burn up in the atmosphere.

But just when, no one can say for sure.

"It's a significant amount of time, on the order of years," Arvesen said.

Upcoming Delta launches

Work to prepare the next Delta 3 rocket for launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station is well along in its schedule.

Delta 3 History

The first Delta 3 launch on Aug. 26, 1998 ended a couple of minutes after liftoff when the rocket lost control, pitched over and then exploded, taking the Galaxy 10 communications satellite with it. A computer software change fixed the problem. The second Delta 3 launch on May 4, 1999 ended in failure when its upper stage failed and delivered the Orion 3 communications satellite into the wrong orbit. The engine has been redesigned and a very similar model successfully flew on an Atlas 3 rocket in May.

All of the major components are at the Cape, according to Arvesen, and the pre-launch work is going well.

The first stage of the rocket is expected to be installed at Launch Complex 17 by the end of June, followed a couple of weeks later by the attachment of the upper stage. From there the schedule follows a routine plan leading to an Aug. 19 launch.

The effort will pause briefly for the next launch of a Delta 2 rocket, which is now targeted to fly about July 17.

That mission is for the Air Force and will carry a military navigation satellite into orbit to join the existing constellation of Global Positioning System spacecraft already in space.

Boeing managers stressed that both the Delta 2 and Delta 3 launch dates are not yet firm and are likely to move a couple of days depending on other launch operations already planned on the Eastern Range.