Advanced Extremely High Frequency - First AEHF Satellite (USA-214)

First AEHF Satellite (USA-214)

The first satellite, USA-214, was successfully launched by an Atlas V 531 rocket on 14 August 2010, from Space Launch Complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. This occurred four years behind schedule; when the contract was awarded in 2000 the first launch was expected to occur in 2006. The program was restructured in October 2004, when the National Security Agency did not deliver key cryptographic equipment to the payload contractor in time to meet the launch schedule.

After the launch successfully placed the satellite into a supersynchronous-apogee transfer orbit with 50,000 km (31,060 mile) apogee, 275 kilometer (170 mile) perigee, 22.1° inclination, the satellite vehicle's Liquid Apogee Engine (LAE) provided by IHI failed to raise the orbit after two attempts. To solve the problem, the perigee altitude was raised to 4700 km (2900 miles) with twelve firings of the smaller Aerojet-provided Reaction Engine Assembly thrusters, originally intended for attitude control during the LAE engine burns. From this altitude, the solar arrays were deployed and the orbit was raised toward the operational orbit over the course of nine months using the 0.27 Newton Hall thrusters, also provided by Aerojet, a form of electric propulsion which is highly efficient, but low thrust. This took much longer than initially intended due to the lower starting altitude for the HCT maneuvers. This led to program delays, as the second and third satellite vehicle LAEs were analyzed. The investigation into the propulsion anomaly has been completed (but not yet publicly released) and the remaining spacecraft have been declared flight ready. A Government Accounting Office report released in July 2011 stated that the blocked fuel line in the Liquid Apogee Engine was most likely caused by a piece of cloth inadvertently left in the line during the manufacturing process.