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United Launch Alliance Delta IV heavy lift expendable launch vehicle successfully boosted the last Defense Support Program satellite into orbit Nov. 10 at 8:50 p.m. The Northrop Grumman-built DSP separated from the booster six hours and 20 minutes later, states a company release. Slated to be replaced by the Space-based Infrared System, the DSP constellation should serve “well into the next decade” with the addition of DSP 23, said Alexis Livanos, head of Northrop’s space technology sector. The DSP system has been in service for about 40 years.
Within a brand-new, gleaming-white facility called the “high bay” at the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Complex, a battered and rusty-looking fuselage and left wing of a B-52H has become a laboratory for the government-industry team that will revamp the aged Stratofortress fleet for the next 30 years.