CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) --
A rocket carrying an intelligence-gathering payload for the Pentagon suffered a
technical problem after its launch, officials said. But they were confident
Saturday that its secretive mission would be performed.
The Atlas V rocket launched Friday
morning, hauling a payload from the National Reconnaissance Office, a
division of the Department of Defense that builds and operates spy satellites.
The NRO said Friday night
that the launch was successful, but the rocket's Centaur upper stage later had
a "technical anomaly which resulted in minor performance degradation.''
Rick Oborn, an NRO
spokesman, said Saturday there was a slight but manageable problem. Officials
did not elaborate and have not said exactly what the rocket was carrying or how
it would be used.
"We're confident we're
going to perform our mission,'' Oborn said. When asked if replacement launches
would be needed, Oborn said: "If you've got something that's working why do you
need a replacement?''
According to United Launch
Alliance - the new partnership between Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co.
that was responsible for launching the rocket - the payload will monitor the
globe "for early warning of potential trouble spots, compliance with
international agreements of all kinds, and changing environmental conditions.''
Much of the information
typically available for launches was being kept secret because of national
security concerns.
Oborn referred further
questions to United Launch Alliance.
An engineering review to
study what went wrong began Friday, said United Launch Alliance spokeswoman
Julie C. Andrews.
"It'll be a very thorough
review as always,'' she said. "We're just not going to speculate on what caused
the anomaly.''
Andrews confirmed there was
a problem with the upper stage, but said "I can't discuss the orbit'' at the
behest of the NRO. She said both the United Launch Alliance and the client, the
NRO, consider the launch a success.
The last time an Atlas V
launch had a problem was in 1993, Andrews said.
Air Force space center
spokesman Joe Davidson declined to comment beyond what the NRO said Friday
night.
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