Delta Heavy launch today in California with another spy satellite

  • Posted on: 28 August 2013
  • By: Jay Oyster

Note: Everything here is public information. I'm not a reporter, but a space fan.

2:21pm EST Update - Success, at least up to the point where they black out news coverage. It got through booster separation, main engine cut-off, second stage engine start, and nose cone jettisonning. That's probably 90% to minimal orbit, and about 50% to it's final orbit.

I used to watch shuttle and other launches obsessively, but in recent years the excitement has waned. I and many others have been more excited by the prospects of private companies getting into the space game, but that too has faded in recent years. SpaceX is doing great stuff, but at about one quarter the speed we all expected.  We'll see next month if that continues as they launch their first upgraded Falcon 9 from their new heavy launch pad at Vandenberg  But much of the other private space industry excitement has faded in the last five years. First, Scaled Composites and Virgin Gallactic had their rocket engine explosion in the Mohave desert in July of 2007 that killed three of their most experienced rocket engine guys, which completely shocked the entire private space industry.  As a result of this and other setbacks, there's been a series of slow collapses of many of these private space companies, such as happened with Armadillo Aerospace this past year.

Delta 4 Heavy on the launch pad, 2013-08-28. NROL-65.  Photo Credit: Pat Corkery/United Launch AllianceSo what's left to watch for a space enthusiast? Really, it's back to the established players. Later today, the US military will be launching a gigantic satellite (or possibly two) for the National Reconnaissance Office, the government office responsible for providing spy satellites to the CIA and other intelligence agencies of the US government. As usual with these launches, they won't say exactly what they're launching, but based on the launch time and target orbit, which have to be supplied to the public to ensure clearance around the launch pad, experts in the industry probably know what's going up today.  The photo at right was taken by a pad teammember early this morning.

So, the big thing is that today at 10:52am Pacific Standard Time (1:52pm EST), the Air Force will be launching a Delta 4 Heavy rocket with a payload called "NROL-65". This launch is going to a polar orbit, meaning it will be going south from Vandenberg, rather than east. Polar orbits, as you'd expect from the name, are ones that go *vaguely* over the planet's poles, as opposed to the normal orbits, which go vaguely around the equator. An eastern launch would give the rocket extra energy by using the rotational motion of the planet, so to get a heavy object into orbit on a polar plane, you need an extra powerful rocket. Today, they will be using the Heavy variant of the Delta 4 line, which actually uses three full central core rockets. The Delta 4-Heavy is currently, startlingly, the most powerful active rocket in service today. It can place up to 22,950 kg (or a bit more than 50 thousand pounds) into a low Earth orbit, which is a couple thousand pounds more than the next runners up, namely the Russian Proton M rocket and the Ariane 5 ECA rocket.   Those are all in the Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle Category. There are currently no systems launching right now on Earth in the Super Heavy Lift category, as could the Saturn 5, the Russian Energia, and if you include the shuttle itself, the Space Shuttle.  So, to be clear, the most powerful rocket we, humanity, can launch right now is a system that has about 20% of the capability that  we had in the 1960s and 70s.

There are several systems in development today to lift twice, and eventually about five times what the Delta 4 can, but given the economic realities of the world today, most would give any of these systems only a slim chance of actually reaching orbit with real machinery.   The Falcon 9 Heavy, with about three times the capability of the Delta 4 Heavy, is supposed to arrive next year, but probably won't be finished until 2015. But it's at least likely to happen. The Chinese and Russians both have several systems in development in the heavy lift class. And most excitingly from the perspective of a 'big rocket fan' perspective is the fact that the U.S. and the Chinese both have active programs working to create rockets in the Super Heavy category which would actually be about 20% more powerful than the Saturn V.

Poster provided by the NROBut for right now, today, we have a launch. The Air Force does provide a basic feed of the launch itself, since that doesn't provide any additional information over what they've already published. 

So what is it that they're launching today? The best guess seems to be that this is a satellite in the CIA's "USA" series, probably a KH-11 spy satellite. These are also known as "Keyhole Spy Satellites" in that they provide those live satellite feeds of ground locations with a resolution of around 10". They probably each have a 2.4 meter wide optical mirror, so the same size as the  Hubble Space Telescope primary mirror, but pointed at the Earth. Anyone who's seen the various Tom Clancy or Jason Bourne movies has probably seen Hollywood guesstimates of how this might look. Some sample videos have also been released by the U.S. government from Afghanistan, Pakistan and other places showing how this video capability actually looks.  As far as anyone knows, the keyhole satellites are launched into one of two polar orbits, each at right angles to the other, one called the East plane and the other the West plane. Each orbit typically has a primary satellite and a backup, but right now both orbits already have two on orbit, so today's launch will be putting up a fifth, which will probably become the new primary, with USA-186 shifting to the backup role. They may soon be deorbiting one of th existing KH-11s, or maybe this new one has some new capability that  warrants having it up there along with the other four. That much, nobody knows, at least no one who's talking.

Live streaming coverage and status reports are available today from Spaceflightnow.com.