http://news.newspress.com/topsports/120103launch.htm?now=43251&tref=1
Satellite to launch; curiosity soars
12/1/03
By NORA K. WALLACE
NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
A top-secret national security satellite -- estimated to be worth
several billion dollars -- will be lofted into orbit early Tuesday morning
from Vandenberg Air
Force Base.
The final Atlas 2AS to fly from Vandenberg is set to lift off sometime between
1 and 5 a.m. Tuesday, carrying a payload for the National Reconnaissance
Office.
The NRO -- once a clandestine organization -- does not release any information
about the satellites it launches and operates, including mission, weight or
cost. The agency and the military don't even release the actual launch time
until shortly before liftoff.
"I can only say those two words, 'national security,' " said Fran
Slimmer, spokeswoman for International Launch Services.
Tuesday's launch has been delayed about a half-dozen times over the past year
for various spacecraft and payload issues.
Two previous Lockheed Martin Atlas 2AS launches flew from Vandenberg. A
December 1999 launch carried NASA's
$1.5 billion Terra spacecraft and a September 2001 Atlas 2AS carried another
satellite for the NRO.
While the military and the government refuse to give details of the launch,
space enthusiasts around the world work to uncover such information. Sky
watchers
track every detail of the launch to determine the cargo, including checking
trajectories and orbits, and charting the flight path of the rocket.
The 2001 satellite, according to space enthusiasts, was likely a Navy ocean
surveillance satellite, possibly a new generation of the Naval Ocean
Surveillance System, or NOSS. Those payloads generally consist of three
satellites used to identify the location of ships.
Ted Molczan, a satellite tracker from Toronto, said the public information
about Tuesday's launch is identical to the 2001 Atlas launch, which carried
two NOSS satellites. Because of that, he believes
Tuesday's launch is the same system. The main mystery, he said, is whether
there are two or three satellites aboard the rocket.
All the NOSS-type satellites launched between 1971 and 1996 carried three
satellites.
"They are believed to detect radio transmissions from ships at sea,"
Mr. Molczan said. "This enables the U.S. government to locate and track
the movements of foreign vessels of interest, for military and/or intelligence
purposes."
The 159-foot-tall Lockheed Martin rocket will soon be replaced by the
company's Atlas 5, a new breed of rocket. It should launch sometime in 2005
from Vandenberg, Ms. Slimmer said. The Atlas launch pad,
Space Launch Complex 3-East, will be refurbished for the bigger rocket.
As this is the last West Coast Atlas 2AS launch, the NRO will launch future
payloads aboard Boeing Delta 4 rockets, a new type of rocket slated for Space
Launch
Complex-6 next year.
Jalama Beach County Park will be closed from 5 p.m. today to 6 a.m. Tuesday
for launch-related safety reasons.
