TIM FURNISS / LONDON
International Launch Services notches up booster's 23rd consecutive success since its maiden flight in 1993
International Launch Services (ILS) launched a Lockheed Martin Atlas IIAS booster from California's Vandenberg AFB, on 8 September carrying a National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) satellite into orbit.
Two more NRO flights are scheduled for October aboard another Atlas IIAS and a Titan IVB.
The NRO satellite, at 4,725kg (10,400lb) the heaviest to be launched by an Atlas booster, is thought to be an electronic intelligence satellite for monitoring land-based and naval activities, such as those of the Chinese military.
The Lockheed Martin-built Space Based Wide Area Surveillance Systems (SBWASS) spacecraft have previously been launched on Titan IVs. SBWASS is the follow-on to the Naval Ocean Surveillance System. The next NRO launch, scheduled for 1 October, and also from Vandenberg, is understood to be a radar imaging reconnaissance satellite, Onyx, aboard a Titan IVB booster. A further Atlas IIAS is due to launch an NRO payload from Cape Canaveral, Florida on 11 October. This is thought to be either a satellite data system or signals intelligence satellite.
The 8 September launch was the 23rd consecutive Atlas IIAS success since the maiden flight of this model in 1993 and the 57th consecutive success for the Atlas fleet as a whole.
ILS is also planning two Russian Proton launches from Baikonur this year - a DirecTV satellite on 19 October and an Intelsat 9 on 26 November.
Source: Flight International
