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Title: ULA Launches First National Security Mission On Vulcan Centaur Rocket

Link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/08/13/0724...

United Launch Alliance's Vulcan Centaur rocket successfully completed its
first-ever national security mission, launching the U.S. military's first
experimental navigation satellite in 48 years. Space.com reports: The mission
saw the company's powerful new Vulcan Centaur rocket take off from Space
Launch Complex 41 (SLC-41) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
Vulcan launched with four side-mounted solid rocket boosters in order to
generate enough thrust to send its payload directly into geosynchronous orbit
on one of ULA's longest flights ever, a seven-hour journey that will span
over 22,000 miles (35,000 kilometers), according to ULA. The payload
launching on Tuesday's mission was the U.S. military's first experimental
navigation satellite to be launched in 48 years. It is what's known as a
position, navigation and timing (PNT) satellite, a type of spacecraft that
provides data similar to that of the well-known GPS system. This satellite
will be testing many experimental new technologies that are designed to make
it resilient to jamming and spoofing, according to Andrew Builta with
L3Harris Technologies, the prime contractor for the PNT payload integrated
onto a satellite bus built by Northrop Grumman. The satellite, identified
publicly only as Navigation Technology Satellite-3 (NTS-3), features a phased
array antenna that allows it to "focus powerful beams to ground forces and
combat jamming environments," Builta said in a media roundtable on Monday
(Aug. 11). GPS jamming has become an increasingly worrisome problem for both
the U.S. military and commercial satellite operators, which is why this
spacecraft will be conducting experiments to test how effective these new
technologies are at circumventing jamming attacks. In addition, the satellite
features a software architecture that allows it to be reprogrammed while in
orbit. "This is a truly game-changing capability," Builta said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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