The Latest US Spy Satellite Launch

The United Launch Alliance (ULA) have launched their Atlas V rocket on the NROL-39 mission for the National Reconnaissance Office. Liftoff from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California was on schedule at the opening of the launch window at 23:13 local time Thursday (07:13 UTC on Friday).

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Like most of the NRO’s satellites, the NROL-39 spacecraft and its mission are classified; however due to the nature of satellite programs it is hard to keep many details secret.

  NASA Space Flight

Especially when the details they fail to keep secret are the ones that make them look good…and baaaaad.

The NROL-39 mission made use of United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket. Named Belle, and with the tail number AV-042, the Atlas flew in the 501 configuration with a five-metre payload fairing, no solid rocket motors and a single-engine Centaur upper stage.

AV-042 was the forty-second Atlas V to fly, and the fifth to use the 501 configuration. In addition to NROL-41, previous Atlas V 501 launches have deployed the three flights of the X-37B spacecraft, the most recent of which is still in orbit having launched last December.

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AV-042 was the eighth and final Atlas to launch in 2013; the first time eight Atlas V launches have taken place in a single year.

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The first week of April will see the next Atlas V launch from Vandenberg, with the DMSP-5D3 F-19 weather satellite. Launches later in the year will deploy a MUOS communications satellite, two GPS satellites, the NROL-33 payload and NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) spacecraft from Cape Canaveral, with the WorldView-3 commercial imaging satellite and the NRO’s L-55 payloads slated for Vandenberg launches.

The NRO [National Reconnaissance Office] is the agency in charge of designing, building, launching and maintaining America’s spy satellites. The DNI said that its latest rocket would carry a dozen mini satellites co-funded by NASA as well as its unknown primary payload.

The DNI did not say just why the NRO thought that a good logo for its spy-craft would be a hugely evil-looking octopus with its tentacles wrapped around the Earth and the inscription “Nothing is beyond our reach”.

  Cryptogon

It seems perfectly appropriate to me.