Delta Successfully Lifts 2 ‘Star Wars’ Satellites

Two “Star Wars” satellites reportedly intended to track a rocket and destroy one another were boosted into orbit today by a Delta rocket whose success brought cheer to a battered U.S. space program.

The operation was a major test of President Reagan’s proposed missile defense system.

Within two hours after the launch, an Aries research rocket was launched from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, and the Strategic Defense Initiative Office said it was connected with the Delta payload.

Sources said one or both of the payloads were to try to track the Aries engine plume with infrared sensors.

The Delta, the first big American space rocket launched since all were grounded by a series of failures, blasted off at 11:08 a.m. and shot the payload into a 255-mile-high orbit after a secret countdown dictated by the SDIO.

‘Much Happier Occasion’

“This is a much happier occasion than the last time we met,” launch director Charles Gay told reporters, referring to a Delta failure in May.

“I think this success was very significant,” he said. “The agency needed it, we needed it for morale purposes and the country needed it because we’ve had a string of failures.”

The office, which manages the missile defense project, placed a secrecy lid on the operation, saying it would disclose details about the payload only if the experiment is a success.

The sources, who spoke on condition they not be identified, said the payload consisted of two satellites that would separate in orbit and fly a series of tricky maneuvers using small jet thrusters as they tracked each other in a kind of orbital ballet.

The objectives, they said, were to obtain spectral data with infrared sensors and to test guidance, navigation and thruster systems.

Kinetic Energy Technology

After the White Sands rocket launch, the satellites were to turn on each other and fire small motors to start them on a collision course, destroying both. This was to be a test of kinetic energy technology in which one projectile is hurled at another at great speed, demolishing it.

One element of Reagan’s defense system, which is known popularly as “Star Wars,” envisions scores of orbiting satellites equipped with lasers, kinetic energy devices and other anti-missile measures.

The Delta performance was good news to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which has had a string of three space rocket failures since the space shuttle Challenger exploded and killed its crew of seven Jan. 28.

One of the failures was a Delta which lost first-stage thrust and went out of control May 3, destroying a $57.5-million weather satellite.