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On November 15, 1990, the space shuttle Atlantis roared into the dark Florida sky on STS-38, the seventh dedicated mission for the Department of Defense. Of the ten classified shuttle missions conducted at the height of the program, STS-38 has been the subject of much speculation due to its secret cargo of two very unusual payloads. Tucked inside the shuttle’s payload bay was a classified National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) communications satellite—known as Quasar—that would be used to relay data between intelligence spacecraft in low Earth orbit. But the Quasar payload, although highly classified, also served as a cover story for an even more exotic payload—a stealthy satellite inspection spacecraft, often referred to as “Prowler”, designed to sneak up on other satellites undetected, photographing and measuring them in various ways.