Titan Launched With Secret Payload

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. —  A Titan rocket today propelled into space a secret military payload that a civilian expert identified as a satellite capable of eavesdropping on Soviet military and diplomatic communications.

The powerful, 16-story-tall Titan 34D, scoring its third straight success after being grounded for 18 months, thundered from its launch pad at 8:05 a.m.

The Air Force did not announce the launch in advance, which has been its practice on military spaceflights, and afterward said only that the Titan 34D, “carrying a classified military payload,” was successfully launched.

John E. Pike, a space policy expert for the Washington-based Federation of American Scientists, said last month that the payload would be a satellite to monitor Soviet missile tests and radio, telephone, radar and other electronic military and diplomatic communications.

He said the payload carried an antenna built to unfold to the size of a baseball field.

The launch today was important to the Air Force because of two failures in 1985 and 1986.

On Aug. 28, 1985, a Titan 34D launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base was destroyed after one of its liquid-fueled engines shut down prematurely. The next launch of a 34D, on April 18, 1986, also ended in failure, this time because of a solid-fuel booster explosion.

But the Titan program resumed operations Oct. 26, 1987, with a successful launch from Vandenberg. That flight was followed by another successful launch Nov. 28, this one from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

The Titan 34D will remain the nation’s most powerful unmanned rocket until an upgraded version, the Titan 4, makes its launch debut later this year, also with a military satellite. Both are made by Martin Marietta in Denver.