SpaceX launches secret National Reconnaissance Office payload

[icymist]

Source: CBS News

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket boosted a classified National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) payload into orbit early Sunday after a foggy California launch, the company's 14th flight so far this year.

Mounted atop pad 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base northwest of Los Angeles, the rocket's nine first-stage engines ignited with a rush of flame at 9:13 a.m. EDT (6:13 a.m. local time), throttled up to 1.7 million pounds of thrust and smoothly pushed the vehicle away from its seaside firing stand.

The first stage, making its second flight, took off on a southerly trajectory, boosting the upper stage and its NRO payload out of the dense lower atmosphere. Two-and-a-half minutes after liftoff, the stage fell away and the single engine powering the Falcon 9 second stage took over for the remainder of the ascent.


"I'm proud of the teamwork, skill and determination that went into making this launch a success and ultimately to delivering critical information to our nation's policymakers, military, and intelligence community," NRO Director Chris Scolese said.

Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/spacex-launches-secret-national-reconnaissance-office-payload/

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Is there something we should be concerned about here since this is Elon Musk sending into orbit a secret payload under the direction of Chris Scolese?

I Googled Chris Scolese and found that he was appointent by POTUS in 2019 and is Senate approved.

"Dr. Christopher Scolese was sworn in as the National Reconnaissance
Office director August 1, 2019. He is the 19th director and the first to be
presidentially appointed and senate confirmed."
https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/about/leadership/bios/DNRO%20Scolese%20Bio_Feb2021.pdf

Guess who was POTUS and who was in control of the Senate in 2019.

[Tetrachloride]

1. I suggest that tangible information be found or delete the thread

we can’t have wannabe smears for every person.

[icymist]

2. I agree.

I still don't trust the Republicans and Mush, though. And I'm not deleting this thread just because you say so.

[ancianita]

3. The National Reconnaissance Office works with the No Such Agency, CIA and DoD.

From writer Dan Brown, who says that all these technologies exist:

The NRO builds and maintains a huge arsenal of cutting-edge spy technologies -- worldwide electronic intercepts; spy satellites; silent, embedded relay chips in telecomm products; even a global naval-recon network known as Classic Wizard, which is a secret web of over 1,400 hydrophones mounted on seafloors around the world, capable of monitoring ship movements anywhere on the globe.

The NRO produces "gist" reports, which are data reduction. It sifts through the NRO's complex daily intelligence, decides which reports are relevant to the President, distills those into single-page briefs, called the gists, then forwards the synopsized material to the President's National Security Adviser.

Chris Scolese has cred. He was acting director of NASA during Obama. Lori Garver, his deputy and also Obama's appointee to NASA, is probably keeping an eye on him.

[icymist]

4. I'll give Scolese the benifit of the doubt.

I must admit that when you mentioned Dan Brown I almost stopped reading.

[ancianita]

5. Cool. Because it's hard to be a space engineer and be as stupid as Republican leaders.

I hear you about Dan Brown. As a retired English teacher I considered him pop fiction. But reading in the time of COVID has led me to some new spy thriller and adventure novelists. My favorite being the amazing James Rollins.

But since I read Origin (a book about AI) and decided Brown's a good writer, overall, I decided to give his first two books a try. Info about the NRO is in one of them.

[AntiFascist]

6. Whatever you may think of Musk as a person...

some of his efforts have helped in Ukraine:

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/22/elon-musk-spacex-thousands-of-starlink-satellite-dishes-sent-to-ukraine.html

WASHINGTON – SpaceX has sent “thousands” of Starlink satellite internet kits to Ukraine, company President Gwynne Shotwell told CNBC on Tuesday.

Elon Musk’s space company began sending Ukraine shipments of Starlink satellite kits — which come with an antenna, a mounting tripod and a Wi-Fi router — shortly after Russia invaded. Ukrainians can use the Starlink kits to connect directly to SpaceX’s network in orbit, with the company having launched about 2,000 satellites to date.

“I’m proud that we were able to provide the terminals to folks in Ukraine. It’s been enormously helpful, I think, to ensure people are still communicating,” Shotwell said during a panel at the Satellite 2022 conference in Washington, D.C.

Musk had Starlink terminals sent to Ukraine after Ukrainian official Mykhailo Fedorov asked the CEO for help while Russia’s attacks were disrupting internet service in the country.

[BumRushDaShow]

7. Before "private" space launches

the intelligence community (and not the least, governmental entities including DOD and DHS) mostly used the Atlantis space shuttle for their "classified" deployments (as an alternate to stand alone rocket launches). More on that here and a list of some (that included other shuttles here), plus NRO's various relationships including with NASA and SpaceX here.