Ramona Adams
United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, has deployed a National Reconnaissance Office payload into space aboard its Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
The NROL-52 payload lifted off Sunday at 3:28 a.m. Eastern time to support NRO’s national security mission, ULA said Sunday.
The company launched NROL-52 using an Atlas V Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle 421 configuration vehicle that features two solid rocket boosters powered separately by the RD Amross-built RD-180 engine and the Aerojet Rocketdyne-made RL10C-1 engine.
The U.S. Air Force initiated the EELV program to provide space access to Defense Department and other government payloads.
Th launch marks ULA’s 7th such mission in 2017 and the 122nd successful deployment since the company was established in 2006.
ULA will also send the Joint Polar Satellite System-1 into orbit for NASA and the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration on Nov. 10.
