{"id":10326,"date":"2023-08-29T18:35:56","date_gmt":"2023-08-29T10:35:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/tropical-storm-idalia-delays-national-security-atlas-5-launch-from-cape-canaveral\/"},"modified":"2023-08-29T18:35:56","modified_gmt":"2023-08-29T10:35:56","slug":"tropical-storm-idalia-delays-national-security-atlas-5-launch-from-cape-canaveral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/tropical-storm-idalia-delays-national-security-atlas-5-launch-from-cape-canaveral\/","title":{"rendered":"Tropical Storm Idalia delays national security Atlas 5 launch from Cape Canaveral"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_63445\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-63445\" style=\"width: 678px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/20230828-Atlas-5-on-Pad-Adam.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"678\" height=\"452\" class=\"size-full wp-image-63445\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/20230828-Atlas-5-on-Pad-Adam.jpg 678w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/20230828-Atlas-5-on-Pad-Adam-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 678px) 100vw, 678px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-63445\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Atlas 5 for the Silentbarker mission, pictured on the launch pad Monday. Image: Adam Bernstein\/Spaceflight Now.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A tropical storm barreling towards the Florida peninsula caused United Launch Alliance (ULA) to stand down from an Atlas 5 launch planned for Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Meteorologists forecast Tropical Storm Idalia to become a major Category 3 Hurricane by the time it makes landfall on Wednesday. Late Monday evening, ULA announced it would roll the rocket back to the safety of the Vertical Integration Facility (VIF) ahead of the storm \u201cout of an abundance of caution for personnel safety\u201d as well for the safety of \u201ca critical national security payload.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Earlier in the day during a pre-launch press conference discussing the mission, dubbed NROL-107 or Silentbarker, ULA President and CEO Tory Bruno noted that the probability of violating weather at the planned launch time of 8:34 a.m. EDT (1234 UTC) on Tuesday, Aug. 29, was only 20 percent, but that flipped to 80 percent chance of no-go weather for the backup launch opportunity.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe concern will be high winds. We can take about 54 knots sitting on the pad and so, if we can\u2019t make that, then our next opportunity on the range is a few days off,\u201d Bruno said. \u201cI won\u2019t give you the date yet because it\u2019s still in coordination, but we\u2019ll have to wait.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If ULA had rolled the dice and made an attempt on Tuesday but had not been able to launch, there would not have been time to move the Atlas 5 before bad weather arrived.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt takes us 24 hours once we\u2019re fully tanked to get our cryos [liquid propellants] back off so we can roll back to the VIF and button it up to protect if from the winds,\u201d Bruno explained Monday morning.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kNpxpRtHRBw\" width=\"678\" height=\"381\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The Silentbarker mission will send a satellite to geostationary orbit (GEO) on behalf of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and in partnership with the U.S. Space Systems Command, part of the U.S. Space Force.<\/p>\n<p>During Monday morning\u2019s press event, NRO Director Christopher Scolese described it as a \u201cwatchdog\u201d to track other satellites in the GEO space.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019ve heard about communications satellites moving from one location to another to provide better coverage for other areas. Certainly, we want to be able to see that, so we know what is going on in that area,\u201d Scolese said. \u201cBut we also want to know if there is something going on that is unexpected or shouldn\u2019t be going on that could potentially represent a threat to a high-value asset, either ours or one of our allies\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>NROL-107 will be the first of at least two mission launches supporting the Silentbarker program, according to Scolese, with initial operational capability beginning in 2026. This launch aboard the Atlas 5 rocket will include more than one payload, but officials declined to go into further detail.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_63444\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-63444\" style=\"width: 678px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-63444\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/20230828-Payload-Fairing.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"678\" height=\"960\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/20230828-Payload-Fairing.jpg 678w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/20230828-Payload-Fairing-212x300.jpg 212w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 678px) 100vw, 678px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-63444\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The top secret payload shrouded in the Atlas 5\u2019s fairing is code-named Silentbarker. Image: Michael Cain\/Spaceflight Now.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Lt. Gen. Michael Guetlein underscored the significance of the mission in his opening remarks on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe capability that we\u2019re going to launch\u2026 goes a long way towards giving us the competitive endurance, competitive advantage in space to make sure we can not only see, but maintain custody of the threats in GEO,\u201d Guetlein said.<\/p>\n<p>ULA will determine a new launch date after the storm passes in coordination with the NRO and SSC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Atlas 5 for the Silentbarker mission, pictured on the launch pad Monday. Image: Adam Bernstein\/Spaceflight Now. A tropical storm barreling towards the Florida peninsula caused United Launch Alliance (ULA) to stand down from an Atlas 5 launch planned for Tuesday. Meteorologists forecast Tropical Storm Idalia to become a major Category 3 Hurricane by the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[724,1529,1530,363],"class_list":["post-10326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-atlas-5","tag-nrol-107","tag-silentbarker","tag-ula"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10326"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10326\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}