Rocket carrying classified payload launches from California’s central coast

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. — A rocket carrying a top-secret payload blasted off Tuesday from the California coast.

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The reconnaissance office, which oversees the nation’s constellation of spy satellites, has kept mum about the purpose of the mission and directed United Launch Alliance to cut off the live broadcast three minutes after liftoff.

Intelligence analysts think the rocket carried a radar imaging satellite capable of seeing at night and through bad weather. In recent years, the United States has worked to phase out its fleet of older, heavier radar reconnaissance satellites with smaller but equally capable ones, said Charles Vick, a space policy analyst with the Globalsecurity.org think tank.

Such radar satellites would be able to zero in on countries of interest and see details that typical Earth satellites can’t, experts said.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/rocket-carrying-classified-payload-launches-from-californias-central-coast/2012/04/03/gIQAjYh1tS_story.html


The successful launch is the first of four spy satellite missions to be launched for the NRO this year. In 2011, the NRO launched six reconnaissance spacecraft in seven months. In 2012, the agency aims to launch the four new craft in 2012 within the span of five months.

http://www.spacenews.com/launch/120404-delta-lofts-nro-spy-satellite.html