US launches 4 secret spy satellites to orbit

[LazyHippo]

Four more U.S. spy satellites just took flight.
A Northrop Grumman Minotaur IV rocket launched from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) in Virginia today (July 15) at 9:46 a.m. EDT (1346 GMT), carrying the NROL-129 mission to orbit for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and Space Force.

The NRO develops and operates the nation's fleet of spy satellites, the activities of which are generally classified. So we don't know exactly what the NROL-129 spacecraft will be doing up there, or even what their final orbital destinations are.

"NROL-129 supports NRO's overall national security mission to provide intelligence data to United States senior policy makers, the intelligence community and Department of Defense," NRO officials wrote in the mission's press kit.

 

 

A Northrop Grumman Minotaur IV rocket launched from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on the mission NROL-129 on July 15, 2020. (Image credit: NASA)
 

The Minotaur IV stands 78 feet (24 meters) tall and consists of four stages. The lower three stages are powered by solid rocket motors sourced from decommissioned Peacekeeper intercontinental ballistic missiles. The fourth stage features Northrop Grumman's Orion 38 motor.
The Minotaur IV debuted in April 2010 and now has seven missions under its belt, all of them successful. Two of the seven were suborbital flights.
MARS is located on Virginia's Wallops Island, adjacent to NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, which ran MARS until 2003. Today, the spaceport is operated by the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority, with support from NASA Wallops.
NROL-129 is the NRO's first dedicated launch from the MARS-Wallops complex, as well as the first mission the site has hosted in partnership with the U.S. Space Force, which was officially created in December 2019. The Launch Enterprise Program of the Space Force's Space and Missile Systems Center provided launch services for NROL-129.

 

 

[TechN9NE]

I live here in Virginia dude, so I think this is pretty cool , thanks for sharing bro!

[tipsy]

Hide ur weed @TechN9NE

[D..X]