Tech Times reports that “a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta IV rocket blasted off Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 3:40 a.m. local time on Wednesday lighting up the pre-dawn sky. The towering rocket was carrying a classified National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) NROL-45 spy satellite.”  

“The NRO is responsible for designing, building and operating the spy satellites of the United States. The federal agency was set up in 1961, four years after the Soviet Union started the space age with the launch of its Sputnik 1 satellite. The agency worked in secret for over more than decades until its existence was declassified in 1992.”  

“The mission is ULA’s second in six days after the Feb. 5 launch of an Atlas V rocket carrying a GPS satellite for the U.S. Air Force.”