Both the Air Force and Lockheed Martin have a lot riding on this mission. The Air Force desperately needs the Milstar 2's expanded communications capabilities while Lockheed Martin -- prime contractor for both Milstar and its Titan 4 booster -- is looking for vindication from a devastating launch mishap two years ago.

The first Milstar 2 (designated F-3) was lost in April 1999 because Lockheed Martin engineers loaded corrupted computer software into the Titan 4's Centaur upper stage causing it to fly off course about nine minutes after launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

The faulty software also caused two "abnormal firings" of the Centaur and prematurely deployed the Milstar spacecraft into a useless orbit. After several days of futile salvage efforts, the Air Force declared the satellite a complete loss on May 4, 1999.

Subsequent Air Force investigations concluded that substandard Centaur software development, testing and quality assurance processes at Lockheed Martin Astronautics' Littleton, Colo. facility "failed to detect and correct a human error made during manual entry of data values into the Centaur's flight software file." The result was one of the most costly losses in U.S. space history.

The Milstar 2 (F-4) spacecraft to be launched today is an updated version of the two Milstar 1 satellites launched from Cape Canaveral in 1994 and 1995. Third in a planned five (originally six) spacecraft constellation of highly-survivable communications satellites, Milstar 2 is designed to provide the "National Command Authorities" -- the President, Secretary of Defense, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman -- the means to instantaneously communicate with their forces worldwide, secure from eavesdropping but still protected from enemy electronic jamming.

Utilizing a revolutionary method of "frequency hopping," extremely high transmission frequencies (EHF) that are rapidly changed, the Milstar satellites are designed to foil interception or interference of encrypted data.

The first pair of the less capable Milstar-1 spacecraft were primarily designed to relay the Emergency Action Messages or "Go Codes" that would initiate a nuclear confrontation, but their Low Data Rate (LDR) communications package is much too slow to efficiently transmit anything but teletype and compressed voice transmissions with an emphasis on highly survivable, minimum essential communications.

The new Milstar 2 satellites feature a Medium Data Rate (MDR) payload that provides a much higher data rate than the Milstar 1, enabling the transmission of regular voice communications, imagery, intelligence and air tasking orders to mobile forces. A "nulling" feature will neutralize close-in enemy electronic jamming capabilities.

Milstar 2 spacecraft are also expected to provide the capability to be called "as needed" by ground forces, ships, submarines and aircraft over long distances and in different theaters of operation, in addition to communicating with the nuclear triad of missiles, submarines and bombers.

Air Force Brig. Gen. Craig Cooning, the Pentagon's Executive Officer for Space, likes to call Milstar "the Fed-Ex of the communication business - when it absolutely, positively has to be there."

However, this ability to instantly "reach out and touch" doesn't come cheaply -- the Milstar system will eventually cost the Pentagon at least $17 billion for research, development, production, launch and operations. Those are just the publicly-disclosed costs. A decade of Milstar development expenses from 1983 to 1992 remains a military secret.

Even worse, many have questioned Milstar's effectiveness under post-Cold War battlefield conditions.

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Military space analyst Dwayne A. Day, editor of Eye in the Sky: The Story of the Corona Spy Satellites, is among those unconvinced about Milstar's eventual usefulness.

"Milstar has had a problematic history. It is really a Cold War system that has only slowly metamorphised into something more useful for the modern day. But it's clear that it will never live up to its original potential."

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Privately, many high-ranking Air Force officers have criticized the program over the years, lobbying against its continuation because of fears that Milstar was siphoning dollars from their highly-prized fighter aircraft projects. In a CBS News "60 Minutes" expos, Air Force Col. Sanford Mangold alleged that he had been removed from his position with the Air Force Space Command because of his vocal opposition to the Milstar program, which he termed a "costly waste."

A critical 1998 report by one government agency seemed to lend credence to some of Mangold's charges, raising a red flag over Milstar's fundamental capabilities.

According to the U.S. General Accounting Office -- the watchdog of government expenditures -- the first pair of Milstar 1 satellites, launched from Cape Canaveral in 1994 and 1995, could not transmit communications by voice in a "timely and intelligible manner." These communications are vital to determine if an enemy ballistic missile launch is directed at the United States -- part of a first-strike nuclear attack.

The GAO also stated that the Air Force's ability to verify that accurate and timely ballistic missile alert messages transmitted from the North American Aerospace Defense Command to other strategic command centers could not be accomplished without software modifications.

Even more disconcerting was the GAO's assertion that the Air Force cannot guarantee that the new Milstar 2's will be able to maintain secure communications with forces in the field even before the last of the three Milstar 2 satellites is launched. Additionally, development slips in crucial computer software could prevent the Milstar satellites from supporting combat troops and fighter aircraft in places like the Persian Gulf.

Any potential degradation in spacecraft performance unfortunately will occur at the same time that ground and air forces will become highly dependent on Milstar-relayed voice and data transmissions. Once tactical forces have become dependent on Milstar, this situation could result in users not having the communications capacity they require to execute their missions.

The GAO concluded: "Considering the importance of the Milstar system and the billions of dollars that have been invested in the program, it is essential for DOD (Department of Defense) to ensure that Milstar 1 and 2 capabilities will be operationally effective and able to adequately support strategic and tactical forces in a timely manner."

A May 1998 report by the Air Force's own Operational Test and Evaluation Center concluded that the Milstar system was effective for communications under normal peacetime conditions; however, a number of deficiencies required corrective action before the satellite's full nuclear wartime strategic capabilities could be realized.

All of the Milstar deficiencies are associated with "system connectivity", the ability to interconnect different users using different communications hardware, a vital operational issue that cuts to the heart of Milstar's primary mission - providing minimum essential worldwide communications among all services at all levels of military conflict.

The Air Force and its contractors are actively working to resolve the deficiencies flagged in the GAO and Air Force reports, according to Cooning and Major Bob Suprenant, Chief of the MILSATCOM Current Operations Section at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado. New software and improved versions of Milstar's Automated Communications and Management System are undergoing operational testing, while the transmission of Emergency Action Messages -- the 'Go Codes' that would initiate a nuclear response -- have been re-certified in response to the GAO report.

The Defense Department has accelerated the development of an Advanced Extremely High Frequency (Advanced EHF) satellite communications program to replace Milstar. In May 2000, Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Boeing Satellite Systems and TRW formed a National Team to build the Advanced EHF system. First launch is now projected for December 2004, 18 months earlier than originally planned, to help bridge the gap in military communication coverage caused by the 1999 loss of the Milstar 2 (F-3) satellite. According to Cooning, the Air Force made a conscious decision to accelerate the Advanced EHF program rather than request funding from Congress for a replacement Milstar 2.

However, the Air Force and other Milstar users, particularly the Army, cannot afford to wait almost four years for a Milstar follow-on to reach orbit. The ever-evolving demands of modern warfare require secure, protected and survivable communications. For these warfighters, Milstar is the only game in town.

"In the communications business, they just don't come any more important than Milstar," said Cooning.