The National Reconnaissance Office says the classified NROL-30 payload launched aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V from Cape Canaveral AFS, Fla., June 15 achieved “nominal” vehicle separation from the booster. NRO expressed confidence that the space vehicle could perform its mission, despite the Centaur upper stage “technical anomaly which resulted in minor performance degradation.”
The computer code that runs the MQ-9 Reaper drone will be overhauled in the next two years to test revolutionary new tools that would make its software “much, much harder to hack,” the Air Force says.