Aboard the Titan for the September launch will be the next in the 5D3 series of spacecraft. Built by Lockheed Martin under a $228 million contract signed with the Air Force in 1989, these advanced vehicles carry a microwave imaging sounder and a magnetometer. The Block 5 series 3 units have an orbital life time of 60 months and more anti-jamming equipment than their Block 5 series 1 predecessors.
The meteorological data sent by the DMSP series is received at the Space Forecast Center at Shriever Air Force Base in Colorado for processing and analysis. The center also issues warnings to deployed forces of potential weather threats to U.S. air or sea operations.
Beginning in 2004, the DMSP 6 series, each carrying advanced multispectral imaging sensors, is to be part of the joint Air Force/NASA/NOAA National Polar Orbiting Earth Satellite (NPOESS) system, eliminating the dedicated all-military or all-civilian space weather programs.
The history of the Air Force space weather satellites has been mixed; with onboard failures and sensor malfunctions occurring within the first Block 4 and 5 generations year-and-a-half orbital life times.
There have been 38 launches in the Air Force space weather satellite series since 1965. The DMSP has also used Atlas E boosters for launch services in the past. The Titan II planned for the September launch is a modified ICBM that was stationed in a silo for more than three decades prior to retirement.
An upper stage unit is added to the base missile to insert the satellite into final, proper orbit.
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