US reconnaissance satellite launched in final flight of Delta rocket family

Since the Thor-Delta rocket was introduced in 1960, the Delta family of launch vehicles has sent scores of payloads to space for NASA and the military, from GPS and weather satellites to science missions including eight spacecraft on voyages to Mars. ULA, a partnership of aerospace giants Boeing and Lockheed Martin, is retiring Delta and Atlas rockets in favor of its newly developed Vulcan rocket, which made its inaugural flight in January carrying a privately funded moon lander.

The U.S. Space Force and a Boeing-Lockheed joint venture sent a secret reconnaissance payload to orbit on Tuesday atop a Delta IV Heavy rocket, the last flight of a workhorse launch brand dating back to the early 1960s. The United Launch Alliance-owned rocket, standing roughly 23 stories tall, blasted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida shortly before 1 p.m. EDT under warm, partly cloudy skies.

A live ULA webcast of the liftoff showed the rocketship rising from the launch tower in a thunder of flames and billowing clouds of exhaust and water vapor. The flight is intended to deploy a satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office, a U.S. defense intelligence agency, on a classified mission designated as NROL-70.

The mission marks the 16th and final flight of a Delta IV Heavy and the last of any of the Delta family of rockets, a space launch dynasty that originated from a modified ballistic missile and grew to include more than two dozen increasingly powerful variants. Since the Thor-Delta rocket was introduced in 1960, the Delta family of launch vehicles has sent scores of payloads to space for NASA and the military, from GPS and weather satellites to science missions including eight spacecraft on voyages to Mars.

ULA, a partnership of aerospace giants Boeing and Lockheed Martin, is retiring Delta and Atlas rockets in favor of its newly developed Vulcan rocket, which made its inaugural flight in January carrying a privately funded moon lander. The payload malfunctioned before reaching the moon, but the Vulcan launch from Florida was a success. The Atlas V had 17 more missions booked before it was due to go out of service.

The Delta IV rocket, weighing 1.6 million pounds when fully fueled, consists of a triple-booster lower stage that produces 2 million pounds of thrust at launch, and a single-engine upper stage that carries the vehicle's payload to orbit.

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