So far so good for Tactical Satellite-3's initial hours of its planned year-long mission.

About 90 minutes after a successful liftoff Tuesday from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, NASA Wallops Island Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va., the TacSat-3 program team established communication with the 880-pound spacecraft, operating 264 miles above the Earth.

"Following a flawless liftoff, the satellite is performing just fine. For the next two to four weeks, the TacSat-3 project team will be conducting on-orbit checkout of the spacecraft to ensure optimum performance," said Dr. Thomas Cooley, TacSat-3 program manager, Air Force Research Laboratory's Space Vehicles Directorate here.

"We are excited about demonstrating revolutionary technology, which will ultimately benefit the warfighter, during TacSat-3's 12-month flight."

TacSat-3's trio of pioneering payloads includes the Advanced Responsive Tactically Effective Military Imaging Spectrometer (ARTEMIS), a hyperspectral imager, the Office of Naval Research's Satellite Communications Package, and the Space Avionics Experiment, an AFRL-led experiment featuring the first space-based employment of plug-and-play technology.