At 0010 GMT on 17 September 2014, an Atlas V 401 launch vehicle, operated by the United Launch Alliance (ULA), lifted off from its launch pad at the Cape Canaveral Air Station in Florida, USA, on its way to deliver a satellite payload dubbed CLIO to orbit. According to spaceflight analyst Jonathan McDowell, the spacecraft used a Lockheed Martin A2100 bus design and was placed into a high-perigee Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) on its way to its final geostationary operating position. The mysterious spacecraft is thought to be a signals intelligence spacecraft or possibly communications satellite. The ownership of the spacecraft has not been identified except to note that it was for an unnamed US Government agency.
Mysterious spacecraft CLIO is launched by Atlas V 401 rocket
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