KSC-2009-3661

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – At NASA Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility, the shipping container with the STSS Demonstrator SV-2spacecraft waits to be offloaded from the U.S. Air Force C-17 aircraft. The spacecraft will be transferred to the Astrotech payload processing facility in Titusville, Fla. The spacecraft is a midcourse tracking technology demonstrator, part of an evolving ballistic missile defense system. STSS is capable of tracking objects after boost phase and provides trajectory information to other sensors. It will be launched by NASA for the Missile Defense Agency in late summer. Photo credit: NASA/Jack Pfaller (Approved for Public Release 09-MDA-4616 [27 May 09])