The Centaur segment of the Atlas II rocket is lifted up the launch tower at Launch Pad 36-A Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

The Lockheed Martin Atlas/Centaur segment of the Atlas II rocket is lifted up the launch tower at Launch Pad 36-A, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The rocket is scheduled to launch the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite, known as TDRS-I, in January 2002. The TDRS System (TDRSS) is a communication signal relay system that provides tracking and data acquisition services between low-Earth orbiting spacecraft and NASA/customer control and/or data processing facilities. The system is capable of transmitting to and receiving data from customer spacecrafts over 100 percent of their orbit (some limitations may apply depending on actual orbit). The TDRS-I provides a Ka-band service that will allow customers with extremely high data rates to be supported by the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) if they desire.