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	Missile Warning Satellite Arrives in Proper Orbit By John Kelly FLORIDA TODAY posted: 07:00 am ET 15 February 2004

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- A Titan 4 rocket roared through a narrow break in the gray skies over Florida's Space Coast on Saturday afternoon, delivering to orbit a satellite to warn the United States of a nuclear missile launch.

The monster booster was the next to last of the Titan 4's scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral, bringing the U.S. Air Force and Lockheed Martin Corp. a step closer to the end of a project that employed thousands of Brevardians during the past four decades.

Atop the rocket was a 5,000-pound Defense Support Program Satellite that is part of a network that senses the heat generated when ballistic missiles launch or nuclear weapons detonate on Earth. The first of the satellites launched in 1970, and they were modernized.

The Air Force plans to hand the job off to a new breed of the satellites called the Space Based Infrared System, but the group in orbit has many years of service left.

"These satellites will remain the backbone for the nation's missile warning system," said Col. Robert Reese of the Space & Missile Systems Center at Los Angeles Air Force Base.

The fleet's capabilities are mostly classified, but they also provide warning for smaller surface-to-surface missiles launched in battle areas.

"The threat is still there," said Major Francis Diorin, who is the chief of DSP operations at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado. "The Soviets still have ICBMs on alert."

There is one more DSP left to launch, but it will fly on one of the newer rockets in the American fleet, the heavy version of The Boeing Co.'s Delta 4. The Air Force would not comment on whether the satellite launched Saturday is complementing the set in orbit or replacing another that is nearing the end of its working lifetime.