The U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) will launch a new secret satellite into space on board a Atlas V 421 rocket from Cape Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex -41 (SLC-41) today at around 1237 UTC. The payload for this mission could be a new type of satellite for the Satellite Data System (SDS) constellation.
![NROL61_ExternalSupportImage[1]](http://alert5.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/NROL61_ExternalSupportImage1.jpg)
Photo: ULA
The clues could be hidden in the mission’s patch, says NASA Space Flight. The SDS is also known as Quasar and there were four on the patch which could stand four generations of the Quasar satellite. Three smaller stars are solid in shape with the fourth being bigger and hallow.