The last Atlas 2 rocket launches the NRO L-1 top-secret spacecraft from Cape Canaveral

The NRO L-1 satellite is reported to provide relay services to the several low-altitude, high-latitude photo-reconnaissance satellites, from its high apogee in the northern hemisphere. The launch was given the codename NROL-1, and the USA 179 satellite is the second elliptical orbit NRO Atlas launch, following Capricorn in Jannuary 1998. Two geostationary NRO Atlas launches ("Great Bear" in December 2000 and "Aquila" in October 2001) might be part of the same data relay satellite series.

This is the final launch for the Atlas 2, capping 13 years of service for the Lockheed Martin-built booster with a 100 percent success rate. The flight also marked the last time a rocket would liftoff from pad 36A at Cape Canaveral, after 42 years of services and 69 launches.

This launch was the fifth attempt in as many days for the classified NROL-1 satellite. Battery concerns with the spacecraft's booster scrubbed its first Aug. 27 attempt, then the inadvertent venting of 10,000 pounds of liquid oxygen fuel led to a second scrub 24 hours later. Poor weather grounded two additional launch attempts before today's space shot.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Atlas
• Atlas 2
• Atlas II
• rocket
• launch
• vehicle
• NRO
• NROL-1
• spacecraft
• satellite
• spy
• secret
• launches
• blastoff
• Cape
• Canaveral
• CCAFS
• pad

[artwleb]

I just love those stainless steel tanked Atlases and Centaurs. I wish the video had puled back to show the entire scene in the predawn skies as seen by the eye. The earlier Atlas -Centaurs would display the 4 insulation panels and the shroud once

ejected as 6 twinkling "stars".

[NASCAR48Fan1]

I'm guessing it isn't top secret anymore...

[AblePumper]

Atlas is going to be around for the next fifty years no matter what Obama does to try and derail and destroy the Space Program.