Rocket Porn: Delta IV Heavy Launches Secret Payload Into Orbit
At 9:15 EDT this morning, the United Launch Alliance’s Delta IV Heavy rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral to carry a top secret spy satellite into orbit for the National Reconnaissance Office. With the ability to carry over 28 thousand pounds to geosynchronous transfer orbit, the Delta IV Heavy has the largest payload capacity of the Delta IV family and has the largest payload capacity of any currently manufactured rockets. After a day long delay due to weather the launch was put on hold for another 3 hours after a voltage warning that came on during the vehicle’s switch to internal power just over 3 and a half minutes before launch.
Although it is predominantly used to carry government satellites to orbit, the vehicle may transition into a human flight capacity soon. The Delta IV-H is scheduled to take the Orion MPCV on its maiden test flight in July 2013. The rocket itself is not yet man-rated, but if every thing goes well with the launch of the Orion, it will more than likely be fast-tracked. The payload capacity of the Delta IV-H makes it NASA’s current best hope to get crews out of Low Earth Orbit.
According to NASASpaceflight.com, this launch could be pushing the weight threshold of the Delta IV-H. Back in 2006, a National Security Launch Repot stated that one of the scheduled National Reconnaissance Office launches actually exceeded the payload capacity of the rocket. Due to the launch designation being out of order (NROL-15 when this is the 25th NRO launch) and the fact that this is the first launch of the Delta IV to use the upgraded RS-68A rocket engine, this launch could possibly be carrying some really heavy top secret equipment. We’ll never know what it is though as the launch went under a media blackout 3 minutes after the nose cone separated from the final rocket stage.
Commence super-secret thought control satellite speculation now.
