14 DAY TRIAL // Officials at Northrop Grumman say that the Space Tracking and Surveillance System Demonstration Satellites (STSS) they built have already successfully completed their mission, ahead of schedule.
The spacecraft celebrated their 2-year anniversary on September 25. The main purpose of the STSS network is to track missile launches around the world, through the use of advanced space sensors.
“Even before observing the second anniversary on Sept. 25, 2011, of their tandem launch, the nearly identical satellites already had completed on-orbit mission objectives ahead of schedule,” Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems STSS program manager David Bloodgood says.
The satellite duo has also reached an impressive number of achievements. They orbited the entire planet about 9,333 times, all while communicating with the Air Force Satellite Control Network some 11,429 times. During these contacts, they received a total of 3,405,712 commands or code lines.