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I COULD TELL YOU BUT THEN YOU WOULD HAVE TO BE DESTROYED BY ME -- EMBLEMS FROM THE PENTAGON'S BLACK WORLD |
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NATIONAL RECONNAISSANCE OFFICE, "WE OWN THE NIGHT", 2000 This patch commemorates the August 17, 2000, launch of a "classified National Reconnaissance Office payload" atop a Titan IV rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in Southern California. Clues in the patch's imagery seem to indicate that the satellite in question was, in fact, an ONYX spy satellite, also known by the code name Lacrosse. The owl eyes and the phrase "We Own the Night" seem to imply an imaging platform that can "see" in darkness, indicating a satellite that uses synthetic aperture radar to produce images of the Earth's surface. The wire mesh surrounding the owl's eyes is indicative of the wire mesh on an ONYX satellite that is purported to cover its antennae. The triangular images on the patch represent other ONYX satellites, all of which are in a reconnaissance orbit. (Different satellite orbits do different "jobs.") Two of the filled-in symbols represent active ONYX satellites. The hollowed-out image represents "Lacrosse 1," which was de-orbited in 1997 after nine years in service (it was originally deployed from the space shuttle Atlantis on mission STS-27). The third solid shape represents the satellite being launched.
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