The new joint venture announced the successful launch of the satellite, but neither the company nor the NRO gave any details about the satellite's mission.

McDowell said the satellite was mysterious to satellite watchers because it was in a low orbit of about 220 miles, or 350 kilometers, above the Earth and had not made any move to change its orbital position.

"This is definitely a setback for the NRO, which has had an aggressive technology development program over the past few years," McDowell said. "It adds to the problems that the NRO is having transitioning to its next generation of satellites."

The Pentagon has revamped nearly all its space programs in recent years due to cost overruns, technical issues and schedule delays, but space officials say they have made "significant progress" to get those programs back on track.

Several classified NRO programs, including the Future Imagery Architecture program run by Boeing, have required infusions of several billions of dollars.

Mishaps and satellite failures happen occasionally. In August 1998, an NRO satellite estimated to cost over $1 billion was destroyed when the Lockheed Titan 4A rocket launching it into space exploded some 20,000 feet above the Atlantic.

One industry official said temporary communications lapses occurred occasionally, but a lasting loss of communication with a satellite, as suggested in this case, was rare.

Officials at Boeing, Lockheed and Northrop Grumman Corp., which all produce national security satellites for the U.S. government, declined comment given the classified nature of the NRO satellite.

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