Culminating years of construction and testing, a $1.2 billion satellite designed to spot and track enemy missiles threatening the United States homeland, its deployed military forces abroad or allied nations will ascend to a surveillance post in space Thursday.
Meteorologists are anticipating favorable odds of good weather during the countdown to launch an Atlas 5 rocket and U.S. military satellite on Thursday evening from Cape Canaveral.
Just two weeks before it flies to space, the core stage of the next Atlas 5 rocket was erected aboard the mobile launcher platform this morning by United Launch Alliance technicians to kick off a streamlined vehicle assembly that will break a record.
Launch pads and critical facilities at the Kennedy Space Center and the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station are braced for the onslaught of Hurricane Matthew overnight Thursday, one of the most powerful storms to threaten Florida’s Space Coast since the dawn of the space age 50 years ago.
An Air Force missile detection spacecraft will, effectively, lose its position in the Atlas 5 rocket’s cramped manifest over the next few months after the flight-worthiness of a thruster on the satellite was called into question and delayed its Oct. 3 liftoff date.
A highly sophisticated U.S. Air Force satellite to sound the alarm when an enemy missile launches has shipped to its Florida launch site for liftoff in October aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket.