It is December 11th, 1998. The sleek spacecraft sits on the pad at Cape Canaveral, high atop a Delta 7925 rocket. As the countdown spins toward zero, a redundant series of supercomputers provide management for the rocket’s thruster systems. The zero stage solid fuel engine ignites on cue, burning for precisely 64 seconds, giving way to a 265-second burn of the RS-27C motor burning a blend of lox/kerosene fuel. The spacecraft is propelled to an initial 185 kilometer by 198 kilometer by 28.4 degree parking orbit around the earth. Then a second burn raises the apogee to around 900 kilometers, setting the [READ MORE]