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The United Launch Alliance (ULA), a joint space delivery service by aerospace giants Lockheed Martin and The Boeing Company, carried out the launch of a Delta IV Heavy rocket on Saturday afternoon.
It saw the triple engine craft roar from its launch pad at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, traveling at the speed of sound before soaring beyond the atmosphere.
While much is known about the rocket's early movements, the Delta IV's final destination is being kept under wraps.
A statement from ULA is scant on detail, simply explaining that the 32nd Delta IV mission is for the US National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) to support "national defense."
The NRO is perhaps one of the lesser-known US intelligence agencies, the function of which were only made known to the public back in 1992. The office is largely responsible for producing spy satellites and improving hardware sent out to space.
"When the United States needs eyes and ears in critical place where no human can reach - be it over the most rugged terrain or through the most hostile territory - it turns to the National Reconnaissance Office," a mission statement on the NRO website reads.
It is believed that the latest Delta IV rocket launch is again part of that bid to have"eyes and ears" in difficult to reach places, although the exact purpose or location of the satellite is unknown.
Reader Comments
There is no evidence here that this rocket or faux rocket went into space.
We get:
no continuous video - instead, multiple cuts and shots.
the rocket arc veers to the horizontal - this will not get a rocket into space, it will only put the rocket out over the Atlantic Ocean (in the Bermuda Triangle, which people are supposed to stay away from because it's dangerous and spooky).
no video of the rocket in space - we get computer drawings.
Are you so brainwashed that you automatically and without questions accept this video as truth?
According to some authorities the launch is connected to the black night satellite
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