The final Delta IV Heavy rocket rose away from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Saturday afternoon carrying its clandestine cargo to orbit and ending another chapter for an iconic launch pad.
Liftoff of the rocket manufactured by United Launch Alliance occurred at 3:25 p.m. from Space Launch Complex-6 on the South Base, later than planned after the team fell behind in chores while dealing with technical troubles during the countdown.
The 233-foot-tall rocket carried a top-secret spacecraft for the National Reconnaissance Office, the spy satellite agency for the United States.
Officials ended the webcast a few minutes into the flight after the rocket shed its payload fairing. They typically remain mum about the payload’s arrival in space and its health, but have called the launch successful.
The new spacecraft will provide another tool for NRO as “the nation’s eyes and ears in space,” according to Col. Chad Davis, from the agency’s Office of Space Launch.
“That’s really the National Reconnaissance Office’s charter is to put those exquisite capabilities to listen and see in space in order to deliver what the allied or U.S. warfighters in the field need in order to execute their mission and what our national decision makers need to understand to the best of the ability what our adversaries are doing and thinking,” Davis said.
Explaining why average Americans should care about the mission, Davis noted that fewer than 1% of the nation’s men and women serve in the military today.
“Really what these capabilities are doing is ensuring that less than 1% is never in a fair fight. They’re always on the good end of the advantage in the battlefield,” Davis said.
In addition to enhancing national security, NRO missions mean jobs at Vandenberg and visitors to local communities. Local hotels and restaurants typically see a boost in business around planned launches because of an influx of crew members and spectators.
“It benefits our local community to have these types of missions,” said Col. Bryan Titus, Space Launch Delta 30 vice commander.
Ahead of the launch, some officials noted mixed feelings associated with the West Coast’s final Delta rocket departure.
“From a Vandenberg perspective, I think bittersweet is absolutely the right word to use with that,” Davis said.
The Delta IV Heavy rocket has been used to deliver “the most exquisite and most sensitive kinds of capabilities that I wish we could share with the broader community,” Davis added. “But that’s part of the idea is that people don’t know that we can do the kinds of things that we can do in space.”
During Saturday’s countdown, alarms signaling potential problems popped up, but the team overcame the issues, revised the launch time and proceeded toward liftoff.
“Every launch has its thing, I’ve found,” Davis said two days before launch. “It is never easy. Some of these rockets fight us to the very end. It’s like they like sitting on this planet.”
The retirement of Delta IV — two more missions remain on the East Coast — will lead to the Vulcan Centaur launch vehicle under development by ULA.
At Vandenberg, ULA intends to use the SLC-3 for the new rocket and will convert the facility for the new family of boosters once the final Atlas V rocket has flown from the West Coast.
The site was chosen because Atlas and Vulcan have similar systems
“This was also ULA’s 95th Delta mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base and our fifth and final Delta IV Heavy from the West Coast, completing a long, successful tenure of delivering critical national security payloads,” said Gary Wentz, ULA’s vice president of government and commercial programs. “We look forward to preparing Space Launch Complex-3 for future Vulcan flights from the West Coast.”
The Delta program’s end won’t bring layoffs for the ULA team at Vandenberg, according to a ULA official.
“There’s no concern about their future,” Wentz added.
Next in line for Vandenberg’s busy manifest will be the Firefly Aerospace Alpha rocket. Representatives have said the next launch attempt would take place between 12:01 a.m. and 2 p.m. Friday.
— Noozhawk North County editor Janene Scully can be reached at jscully@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.