VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- With a ground-shaking roar, a hugeTitan-34D rocket blasted off Monday to ferry a secret satellite into orbit in what the Air Force said was a major success following back-to-back failures.
The unmanned launcher, the most powerful in the nation's inventory after the space shuttle, blasted off after a secret countdown at 1:32 p.m. PST from a military launch pad on the coast northwest of Los Angeles.
The launch, expected for weeks, marked the restoration of the Air Force's ability to place large spy satellites into orbit, which has not been possible since the Challenger disaster and back-to-back Titan-34D failures in 1985 and 1986.
'This has tremendous significance for the nation's space program,' said Air Force Secretary Edward 'Pete' Aldridge in a statement issued after the launch. 'This Titan-34D success allows us to resume launching critical national security payloads on a regular basis.'
As usual with such launches, the Air Force would not discuss the rocket's payload. But space experts said it was believed to be an Air Force-Central Intelligence Agency KH-11 strategic reconnaissance satellite capable of high-resolution digital photography.
The KH-11, which weighs nearly 30,000 pounds and is about the size of a schoolbus, is a major element of the nation's space reconnaissance system.
Among its sensors is a giant telescope believed capable of photographing objects less than 4 inches across, according to author William Burrows' book 'Deep Black.' The images are turned into computer data and beamed up to a relay satellite for transmission to analysts on Earth within hours.
The KH-ll system calls for two such satellites to be in orbit around Earth's poles at all times. But a Titan-34D failure Aug. 28, 1985 destroyed a KH-11, according to several space experts, leaving a single satellite operational in orbit.
John Pike of the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, D.C., said the normal, three-year effective life of the KH-11 currently orbiting in space is due to end in December.
If that satellite fails, Pike said the KH-11 launched Monday could be crucial to monitoring in 1988 whether the Soviets abide by the terms of the upcoming INF agreement limiting intermediate-range nuclear missiles.
The new KH-11 apparently was a rebuilt ground unit used by builder TRW to test new sensors. Eventually, the Air Force hopes to replace the KH-11s with more powerful KH-12s, which were designed to be launched by space shuttles.
The Titan-34D rocket, made up of a liquid-fueled, two-stage Titan 'core vehicle' and two large solid-fuel boosters, is built by Martin Marietta and is capable of carrying payloads weighing up to 34,900 pounds into low-Earth orbit.
At the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station adjacent to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, another Titan-34D stands on its launch pad waiting for blastoff. Its payload and launch time are classified but with Monday's success, blastoff is expected soon.
The Titan-34D failure in August 1985 was blamed on the premature shutdown of one of the two liquid-fueled first-stage engines in the core vehicle.
After an investigation and corrective action, the rockets were cleared for flight again and on April 18, 1986, just three months after Challenger blew up, another Titan-34D blasted off from Vandenberg.
It exploded about six seconds later, destroying the Air Force's last KH-9 satellite, which was intended to fill in for the KH-11 lost the previous August until a new KH-12 could be launched by a shuttle.
An accident investigation blamed the April failure on a 'burn-through' of the right-side solid-fuel rocket.
