Jones said the Jan. 15 launch date was set immediately after the last Titan launched from the Cape in August.

Technically everything was "go" at Space Launch Complex 40 as of late Monday, with weather the only concern for the launch team. Clouds, rain showers and even some lightning lingered along the Space Coast overnight but that unstable weather is forecast to begin clearing Tuesday afternoon.

Officially there is a 60 percent chance of acceptable conditions at some point during the long window and mission weather officer Johnny Weems indicated Monday that it was likely the Titan launch team would have to burn some extended hold time waiting for the right hole in the sky.

Weems also said that if the launch had to slip for any reason to Wednesday or Thursday the situation would be much improved, with a 90 percent chance of acceptable weather on both days as the skies cleared and the wind shifted.

Security, meanwhile, remains tight around the Cape as the 45th Space Wing and other responsible agencies have closed the airspace and waterways around the air station, not only to prevent the public from being harmed by any incident with the explosive and highly toxic Titan rocket but also to keep any terrorist threat at bay.

"Obviously we can't speak about any specific security measures that are in place, but we can say that our launches are planned, we know when they are going to happen and we build our security around that," said Maj. Mike Rein, a spokesman for the wing that is headquartered at Patrick Air Force Base just south of the air station.

A pair of F-15 Eagle fighter jets have been seen flying over the Space Coast all weekend. And although Rein couldn't confirm the reason for their presence, he acknowledged that fighter jets are on the menu of security resources available to the government to protect this Titan rocket and its expensive cargo.

Added Jones: "We've had exceptional coverage and that continues on land, air and sea, and we feel very secure about entering this countdown."

If all goes well, the Titan 4's twin solid rocket boosters will be ignited to begin a six-hour, 35-minute trip into orbit, during which the Titan's two stages will burn and the high-energy Centaur upper stage will be fired three times to inject the Milstar into its final orbit 22,300 miles above Earth's equator.

From there it will take about 120 days for Lockheed Martin spacecraft engineers to activate and check out the satellite which is as big and heavy as a commercial bus and whose electricity-generating solar panels unfold to a wingspan rivaling that of a Boeing 747 jumbo jet.

Often called a "switchboard in the sky," the Milstar system is a constellation of ultra-secure communications satellites that link together all U.S. armed forces around the globe, regardless of what type of communications equipment each service uses.

From nuclear forces -- which include bombers, missiles and submarines -- to fighter aircraft flying protective cover over New York or to ground forces in Afghanistan, Milstar was designed to enable instantaneous communications with forces in the field -- whether by land, air or sea.

With launch of this fifth Milstar, the planned constellation of four spacecraft will be complete. A Milstar launched in 1999 failed to reach its proper orbit because of a problem with its Centaur upper stage and was declared lost. A sixth Milstar is scheduled to launch from the Cape in November.

And with the combination of a complete constellation and improved instruments aboard the satellite, the speed at which orders and other data can be sent along the network will be significantly improved, according to Christine Anderson, director of Military Satellite Communications at the Space and Missile Systems Center headquartered at Los Angeles Air Force Base, Calif.

Orders that took six hours to send will take only one minute after this satellite is operational, she said. Or put another way: an 8-by-10 image that took 22 hours to transmit will take only two minutes once the constellation is complete.

With a price tag of $800 million per spacecraft, and a development cost of more than $18 billion, Milstar is an expensive way to communicate, but necessary, according to its users. Critics disagree.

"Milstar is really the T-Rex of Cold War era satellite dinosaurs. It is big, expensive and obsolete. It has never lived up to its expectations," said Dwayne Day, a space policy analyst and visiting fellow at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

"Despite that, it has probably been heavily used by the U.S. special forces operating in Afghanistan. Milstar ground terminals have small antennas, meaning that a special forces squad could easily have a satellite hookup to relay information back to headquarters" said Day.