It was a perfect Friday night , April 3,2009 flight for the Atlas 5 rocket, completing a military mission that put an advanced communications spacecraft into the sky to serve U.S. forces deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Technical challenges had held up the launch for several months, but the main engine and twin solid boosters finally lit at 8:31 p.m. EDT to begin a spectacular nighttime ascent.
The satellite will be parked over the equator around 60 degrees East longitude for use by U.S. Central Command in Afghanistan, Iraq and other parts of Southwest Asia, according to Col. William Harding, vice commander of the Military Satellite Communications Systems Wing at the Space and Missile Systems Center in Los Angeles.
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