The Orion 3 satellite was launched on the second flight of the Delta III rocket, using the standard 8930 configuration.

Following this, the rocket entered a coast phase, before the second stage restarted for what was planned to be a 162-second burn to insert Orion 3 into a geosynchronous transfer orbit.

[5] An investigation later determined that the failure of Orion 3's launch was due to the wall of the RL-10 combustion chamber being breached.

[5] The insurers considered asking NASA to fly a Space Shuttle mission to attach a solid rocket motor to the satellite, which would have been used to correct its orbit.

The Shuttle mission would have been similar to STS-49, which reboosted Intelsat 603 following the failure of its launch on a Commercial Titan III.