Another rocket was successfully launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base during the early morning hours of Feb. 10. This time it was a Delta IV “heavy” rocket carrying a super-secret payload for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).
But don’t freak out too much. Known as the “eyes and ears of space,” the NRO’s in charge of “designing, building, launching, and maintaining America’s intelligence satellites,” according to its website.
The agency operates the satellites too, said Loretta Desio, a spokeswoman for the NRO.
Putting satellites into space is par for the course for the NRO. It raises the question: “Are you being watched?”
According to the D.C.-area spy agency, the rocket launched the NROL-45 mission, beginning the first of three NRO launches scheduled for 2016.
The exact purpose of the NROL-45 mission is not publicly known and not mentioned in any official press release.
“That’s because it’s a classified mission,” De Sio told the Sun. “It’s a national security payload. We don’t ever talk about what the mission of those payloads are.”
The security of the U.S. hinges on the mission’s secrecy, De Sio added.
The type of rocket may give a clue to the payload’s mission. The Delta IV was made by United Launch Alliance (ULA), which makes several versions of the rockets.
Compared to the other Delta IVs, the “heavy” version has two extra boosters that allow it to carry a payload of a little more than 62,500 pounds and “provides the most performance of any U.S. launch vehicle available today,” according to ULA’s website.
Spy satellites are heavy. NRO documents declassified in 2011 show that the previous-generation HEXAGON satellites weighed more than 15 tons and were the size of a bus.
The function of the satellite is hard to pinpoint. However, declassified documents show that past satellites took highly detailed photographs of the Earth’s surface. Such photos have been used by the U.S. military, for example, to identify China’s submarine capabilities, according to the Federation of American Scientists.
According to NASAspaceflight.com, a news website that covers rocket launches from around the world, the fact that the Delta IV launched from the West Coast indicates that the satellite is a low Earth orbiting satellite and has a retrograde orbit, meaning that it’s close enough to capture detailed pictures of the planet’s surface and moves in the opposite direction of the rotation of the Earth.
The NRO designs an associated patch for each of its missions. Sometimes the patches can give a clue to what the NROL missions are about.
The NROL-45 patch that’s currently floating around on the Internet depicts a Rottweiler standing in a guard position on top of a green dome, with constellations in the background, and encapsulated inside of a pentagon.
However, De Sio said this patch is not the correct one. The correct one is a black and white patch and depicts a male and female solider kneeling with a service dog in front of a battlefield memorial with the phrase, “for those who have given all, we remember.”
De Sio is not sure how the incorrect patch became associated with NROL-45. In fact, Desio told the Sun that the NRO has not released the mission’s official patch on the organization’s website, but added that it was attached to the side of the rocket.
“It’s just a dedication to our fallen soldiers,” De Sio said. “It serves to remind us of our commitment to deliver the mission on time and in support of the fighters and intelligence community.”
This article appears in Feb 18-25, 2016.
