MELBOURNE, Florida, April 29 - An unmanned Titan 4 rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station today to place a classified military payload into orbit, ending nearly five decades of Titan launches from Florida.
The launch leaves just one final mission for the military’s largest unmanned booster from the Air Force’s west coast launch site in California.
Titan rockets began flying from Cape Canaveral in 1959.
A very successful mission this evening,'' a commentator with Titan manufacturer Lockheed Martin said from launch control centre as the satellite successfully separated from the rocket nine minutes and 30 seconds after liftoff. Congratulations to the entire team.’’
Powered by twin solid rocket motors, the Titan 4 was visible for kilometres in the clear evening sky as it headed north-east along the Atlantic coast.
The rocket had been sitting on its seaside launch pad for eight months before it was finally cleared for flight yesterday. During that time, it weathered three hurricanes, a tropical storm and a spate of technical problems, program managers said.
It also triggered an international incident when Canada lodged a formal protest that the flight path and the jettison of the rocket’s boosters would force an evacuation of oil rigs near Newfoundland.
Without a second-stage engine to worry about, the team expected to have an easy time, Abe Freels, Lockheed Martin’s Titan 4 program engineer said during an informal press gathering yesterday. This one was going to be our cakewalk.'' The successful flight is bittersweet for the Titan team, who will be polishing their resumes and looking for new jobs. Walking out of here the last time is going to be hard,’’ said Freels, who joined the Titan program in 1973. ``There’s a lot of good memories, a lot of good people I’ve worked with.’’