AEHF stands for Advanced Extremely High Frequency and is a satellite fleet developed and operated by the U.S. Air Force Space Command.

Six satellites are planned for the constellation upon its completion, all of which will operate in Geostationary Orbit (GEO).

The AEHF satellites are tasked with relaying secure communications for the Armed Forces of the United States, the British Armed Forces, Canadian Forces, and the Royal Netherlands Armed Forces.

AEHF replaces a older military system and is a joint service communications system that will provide survivable, global, secure, protected, and jam-resistant communications for high-priority military ground, sea, and air assets.

Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman built the AEHF satellites, which weigh 6,168 kg (13,598 lb) each, were constructed on an A2100M satellite bus, and carry a designed 14 year operational life.

The first AEHF satellite was launched on 14 August 2010.

The Atlas V is the workhorse of United Launch Alliance's rocket fleet, combining Russian and American technology. It utilizes the Russian RD-180 engine on its first stage and is known for its versatility, offering 20 possible configurations—though only 10 have flown. Developed in the mid-to-late 1990s, the Atlas V is the fifth and final iteration of the veteran Atlas rocket family, which began its service in 1957. Lockheed Martin designed and built the Atlas V as part of the U.S. government's 1994 Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program, aimed at supporting national security missions. The merger of Lockheed Martin's Atlas V and Boeing's Delta IV in 2006 created United Launch Alliance (ULA), which dominated the U.S. government launch market for over a decade.

Specs

Height: Up to 58.3 m (191 ft)

Diameter: 3.81 m (12.5 ft)

Mass: 590,000 kg (1,300,000 lb)

Stages: 2

The Atlas V's price has fluctuated significantly over the years. For example, a basic Atlas V 401 (featuring no boosters and a single-engine Centaur second stage) cost anywhere from the high-$90 million range to $163 million in the 2000s and early 2010s. However, with the rise of SpaceX as a competitor in the 2010s, significant price reductions followed. Although it is not the cheapest rocket on the market, the Atlas V has maintained an unmatched success rate, achieving a 100% mission success record. It is being phased out in favor of the Vulcan rocket, with full replacement expected by the late 2020s.

The Atlas V 551 variant features a five-meter payload fairing (5), five side-mounted solid rocket boosters (5), and a single-engine Centaur upper stage (1). One of its most notable missions occurred in January 2006, when it launched the New Horizons probe on its journey to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt.

Photo courtesy of ULA.

Space Launch Complex-41 is the east-coast home of United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket. The pad hosted its first launch on December 21, 1965, and is currently being upgraded to support ULA's Vulcan rocket, with its first launch scheduled for no earlier than 2022. For several years, Vulcan and Atlas V will share the pad before Atlas V is retired.

From the 1960s to the 1990s, SLC-41 was used for the U.S. Air Force’s Titan III and Titan IV rockets. Over the years, it has served as the launch site for numerous significant missions, including the Helios probes to study the Sun, the Viking missions to Mars, the Voyager interstellar probes, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, New Horizons to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt, and Juno to Jupiter.

The pad was also used to launch humans aboard Boeing's Starliner capsule, with the inaugural crewed mission occurring in June 2024.

Located on Florida’s east coast, Cape Canaveral is ideally situated to offer access to a wide variety of space destinations while launching over the open Atlantic Ocean, ensuring safety by avoiding populated areas on the ground. The Cape currently supports launches from four different rocket families: Atlas V, Delta IV, Falcon 9, and Minotaur. Additionally, launches of Vulcan from ULA and New Glenn from Blue Origin are scheduled to begin no earlier than 2024.

NASA's Kennedy Space Center, located on neighboring Merritt Island, and Cape Canaveral are often confused or referred to as a single location, but they are distinct government installations. Together, they are united under the name of a single operational area known as the Eastern Range for launch operations.

Over the years, the spaceport has been known by several names: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (1949-1963), Cape Kennedy Air Force Station (1963-1973), Cape Canaveral Air Force Station again (1973-2020), and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (2020-present).

Credit: ULA