  misty is reportedly the name of a classified project by the united states national reconnaissance office to operate stealthy reconnaissance satellites. the satellites are conjectured to be photo reconnaissance satellites and the program has been the subject of atypically public debates about its worthiness in the defense budget since december 2004. the estimated project costs in 2004 dollars are us$9.5 billion (inflation adjusted us$ billion in ). ==launches== the first satellite (usa-53 or 1990-019b,1990-019b 19,600 kg) launched for the program was deployed on march 1, 1990 by the space shuttle atlantis as part of mission sts-36. objects associated with the satellite decayed on march 31, 1990, but the satellite was seen and tracked later that year and in the mid-1990s by amateur observers. the second satellite (usa-144 or 1999-028a1999-028a) was launched on may 22, 1999, and by 2004 the launch of a third satellite was planned for 2009. circumstantial evidence suggested that the third satellite might be the payload of the delta iv heavy launch designated nrol-15, which was launched in june 2012. that launch deposited a payload into geosynchronous orbit but, given the stealth/deception hypothesis, there remains the possibility of other, undetected payloads. {| class="wikitable" style="width:100%;" |- ! name ! cospar idjonathan's space report: list of satellite launchessatcat â ! launch date(utc) ! launch vehicle ! launch site ! launch designation ! orbit ! decay date ! remarks |- ||usa-53 || 1990-019b20516 || 28 february 199007:50 || (sts-36) || ksc lc-39a || n/a || || || |- ||usa-144 || 1999-028a25744 || 22 may 199909:36 || titan iv(404)b || vafb slc-4e || nrol-9 || || || |- |} ==design==  misty is reported to have 
Black_projects Lockheed_Martin_satellites_and_probes National_Reconnaissance_Office_satellites Reconnaissance_satellites_of_the_United_States