Military shuttle flight secret

Press, 5 October 1985, Page 11

Military shuttle flight secret

NZPA-Reuter Cape Canaveral After a flawless launching on its maiden voyage the space shuttle Atlantis — carrying a secret military payload — has all but vanished behind a curtain of silence imposed by the United States Defence Department. Military officials have clamped a strict news black-out on the classified mission, the chief aim of which, say private space experts, is to release a pair of communications satellites capable of relaying the President’s orders for a nuclear strike. Space agency officials said privately that astronauts were due to deploy the two SUSIOO million ($lB3 million) satellites in the first two days of the mission. Atlantis lifted off yesterday at 3.16 a.m. (NZST). The Defence Department

has not only refused to comment on Atlantis’s cargo but has also withheld such details as the planned duration of the flight and the height of the spaceship’s orbit J Radio communications between the astronauts and ground controllers — normally monitored freely from Earth — are being scrambled and blacked out to the public. The secrecy, military officials said, was meant to impede efforts by Soviet spy ships, which are often off Cape Canaveral, to track the flight and monitor its classified mission.

Private space experts say that the secrecy is misguided. “It’s ridiculous to classify Atlantis’s cargo. Anybody could figure it out from scanning public records,” said David Morrisson, senior research analyst for the

Washington-based Centre for Defence Information.

In the political area, analysts said, the secret space mission could be viewed by the Soviet Union as a provocation: a summit meeting between the President of the United States, Mr Ronald Reagan, and the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, is six weeks away. Atlantis’s voyage is the twenty-first flight in the 4%-year-old shuttle programme and the second to be devoted to secret military aims. A similar news black-out was in effect when the spaceship Discovery unleashed a powerful spy satellite in January. Aboard Atlantis are five military officers: the commander, Colonel Karol Bobko; Lieutent-Colonel Ronald Grabe, Major William Pailes, Major David Hilmers, and Lieuten-ant-Colonel Robert Stewart.