Titan 4 rocket lifts off with top secret spy satellite

Spaceflightnow.com ^ | 9/9/2003 | Justin Ray

[Rockitz]

A Lockheed Martin Titan 4B rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 12:29 a.m. EDT (0429 GMT), carrying a giant reconnaissance satellite for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office. Follow the rocket's climb to orbit in our mission status center.

[Rockitz]

Congrats to Lockheed Martin and their NRO customer!

We're good through the second burn of Centaur. Long coast and then a 3rd Centaur burn to come.

[Tree of Liberty]

Interesting timing...

[adam_az]

Way to go NRO!

Here's to hoping it sits in stationary orbit right over Pyongyang.

[Rockitz]

This was planned years ago so I wouldn't give too much weight to the timing.

[blam]

"Interesting timing..."

Yup. That's only the half of it.

[Domestic Church]

Time to ding-dong the no-dong in Pyongyang?

[JustPiper]

Time to ding-dong the no-dong in Pyongyang?

Or as Dennis Miller told us Bill Clinton said "Putang".

[Monty22]

hmmm, that site says they won't announce failure or success of mission, which is different from most classified launches. Probably don't want to give away the timing of orbit insertion, which means it's probably an inflatable 'stealth' sat.

[Rockitz]

I shall neither confirm nor deny mission success. You'll just have to trust us.

[fire_eye]

I shall neither confirm nor deny mission success. You'll just have to trust us.

I'm sure we can just ask the Chinese...

or the Israelis...

[cold_dead_fingers]

I saw it! At 12:30 AM this morning I was heading home to hit the hay when I saw to the north what looked like an orange meteorite traveling very slowly with a large trail of fire and smoke. I was worried that maybe a sattelite fell out of orbit. Now I know!

[FreeAtlanta]

It fell into orbit. :-)

[LurkedLongEnough]

Great news. Cool site too.

[meg70]

CNN says that the satellite can detect individual audio cell phone calls from space.. http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/09/09/satellite.launch/index.html

[mhking]

Follow the rocket's climb to orbit in our mission status center.

How can you do that if it's top secret?!?

Just damn.

If you want on the new list, FReepmail me. This IS a high-volume PING list...

[bedolido]

years ago I used to watch (from a great distance) the after affects of spy satelites being launched from Vandenburg on the California coast. Quite a site to see.

[ko_kyi]

I have seen one at night out of Vandenburg. Amazing to see.

[MAK1179]

Not so top secret anymore is it:-p

[Snowy]

Shhhh!!! You should by typing in invisible letters!