United Launch Alliance, a joint partnership involving Boeing and Lockheed Martin, sent a Delta 4-Heavy rocket into space over the weekend on behalf of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), keeper of the United States’ spy satellites. Little information was made available from the NRO, other than the pronouncement that the three-booster launch vehicle carried “the largest satellite in the world.”

 

Observers believe the spy satellite is of the Mentor or Advanced Orion variety, which utilizes a lightweight, but enormous umbrella-like antenna that’s wider than a football field. The spacecraft’s specialty is eavesdropping on communications from thousands of miles away. The intelligence gathered is then relayed to the National Security Agency for examination and assessment.

 

The NRO is planning more launches in the coming months. Bruce Carlson, the director of the NRO, explained that "this is the most aggressive launch campaign that the National Reconnaissance Office has had in 20 years, almost a quarter of a century. The other thing I can tell you is these are very important, because they all go to update a constellation which is aging rapidly. We bought most of our satellites for three, five, or eight years, and we're keeping them on orbit for ten, twelve, and up to twenty years,"

-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky

 

Essential Eavesdropping Satellite Launching Friday (by Justin Ray, Spaceflight Now)

Delta IV Heavy launches with NROL-32 (by William Graham, NASASpaceflight.com)

Delta 4 Rocket Blasts Off with Classified NRO Satellite (by William Harwood, Spaceflight Now)