LAUNCH CENTER

Success

Sat Nov 08 1997

United States Air Force

NROL-4 (Trumpet 3)

Launch Successful

Launch Time

(2:05 AM UTC)

Launch Window Start

(2:05 AM UTC)

Launch Window End

(2:05 AM UTC)

Location

No Recovery Specified

Type

No Recovery Specified

Titan 401A Centaur

Titan IV was a family of heavy-lift space launch vehicles developed by Martin Marietta and operated by the United States Air Force from 1989 to 2005.

Type: Government/Top Secret
Trumpet signal intelligence satellites were launched by Titan-4(01)A Centaur-T into highly elliptic Molniya-type orbits. In their elliptical orbits they would move very slowly over the northern hemisphere for most of their orbital period, allowing interception of microwave line-of-sight communications beams. Since they would move slowly through the beams during their orbit, a constellation of such satellites was required to monitor Soviet communications throughout the day.

Location

Cape Canaveral, FL, USA

Pad

Space Launch Complex 41