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 Space Force is playing midwife to a new ecosystem of commercial satellite constellations providing alternatives to the service’s own Global Positioning Service from much closer to the Earth, making their signals more accurate and harder to jam.
