A Titan IV rocket carrying a spy satellite,
whose launch was delayed a day earlier due to an electronic glitch, blasted
off Thursday, the US air force said.
The rocket launched from Vandenberg Air Base at 4:45 p.m. (2345 GMT), after
take-off was postponed when technicians discovered a problem during routine
pre-launch testing on Tuesday.
“Everything went normal,” said air force sergeant Lloyd Conley. “They had a
payload/booster separation at 4:54 p.m.
The military satellite carried aboard the rocket, is a top secret one,
launched on behalf of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) — so secret
that its logo was classified until 1994.
The Lacrosse-type spy satellite will be placed in orbit at some 600
kilometers (370 miles), to replace one of the two satellites already in orbit.
Weighing 15 tonnes, the billion-dollar satellite is equipped with an
extremely high-definition synthetic aperture radar system.
“The United States is the only country that has a satellite like this. This
would be a replacement for the oldest of the two,” said John Pike, director of
space policy at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS).
The satellite launch is part of the NRO’s Future Imagery Architecture
program to place in orbit a network of surveillance satellites, with which the
US military are seeking a glimpse in real-time of future battlefields, Pike
said.
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