USA-207, international COSPAR code 2009-047A, also known as PAN, officially meaning ''Palladium At Night'', NEMESIS I, or P360 is a classified

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

SIGINT Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is intelligence-gathering by interception of ''signals'', whether communications between people (communications intelligence—abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly used in communication ( ...

satellite, which was launched in September 2009. The US government has not confirmed which of its intelligence agencies operate the satellite, but leaked documents from the Snowden files point to the

NSA The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collectio ...

. The spacecraft was constructed by

Lockheed Martin The Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American aerospace, arms, defense, information security, and technology corporation with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It ...

, and is based on the A2100

satellite bus A satellite bus (or spacecraft bus) is the main body and structural component of a satellite or spacecraft, in which the payload and all scientific instruments are held. Bus-derived satellites are opposed to specially produced satellites. Bus-d ...

, using

commercial off-the-shelf Commercial off-the-shelf or commercially available off-the-shelf (COTS) products are packaged or canned (ready-made) hardware or software, which are adapted aftermarket to the needs of the purchasing organization, rather than the commissioning of ...

components. The contract to build PAN was awarded in October 2006, with the satellite initially scheduled to launch 30 months later, in March 2009. PAN was launched by

United Launch Alliance United Launch Alliance (ULA), legally United Launch Alliance, LLC, is an American spacecraft launch service provider that manufactures and operates a number of rocket vehicles that are capable of launching spacecraft into orbits around Earth, a ...

using an

Atlas V Atlas V is an expendable launch system and the fifth major version in the Atlas (rocket family), Atlas launch vehicle family. It was originally designed by Lockheed Martin, now being operated by United Launch Alliance (ULA), a joint venture be ...

401 carrier rocket, with the serial number AV-018. The launch, from

Space Launch Complex 41 Space Launch Complex 41 (SLC-41), previously Launch Complex 41 (LC-41), is an active launch site at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. As of 2020, the site is used by United Launch Alliance (ULA) for Atlas V launches. Previously, it had been use ...

at the

Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) is an installation of the United States Space Force's Space Launch Delta 45, located on Cape Canaveral in Brevard County, Florida. Headquartered at the nearby Patrick Space Force Base, the statio ...

, occurred at 21:35 GMT on 8 September 2009, at the start of a 129-minute launch window. PAN successfully separated from the rocket just under two hours after liftoff. PAN has shown an unusual history of frequent relocations during the first 5 years of its operations, moving between at least 9 different orbital slots since launch. With each move, it was placed close to another commercial communications satellite. From 2013 onwards it was located at 47.7 deg E., over East Africa, staying in that position for several years. In February 2021 it started a slow drift eastwards.

Gallery

References

{{Orbit, datasource, H Spacecraft launched in 2009 USA satellites