NRO Orion launch

Titan IVB

This reconnaissance satellite is a giant space antenna that monitors communications, telemetry and electronic signals. It is on station in geosynchronous orbit (always remaining in the same spot) 22,300 miles above the earth. Named Orion for the familiar group of stars, it launched underneath its namesake. That is the same place Juan Ponce de Leon used those stars as his astronomical marker to navigate, when he landed just south of the Cape in Melbourne Beach, in 1513, 495 years ago. His were the first European footsteps to make impressions on the continental U. S. Orion is now also the name of the capsule that will return American human spaceflight to expendable launch vehicles, taking man back to the moon.