Last Titan rocket blasts off

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, California (AP) — For the 368th and last time, the United States launched a Titan rocket into space.

The blastoff on Wednesday of the 16-story, unmanned Titan IV signaled the end of an era that began in 1959, as the U.S. military converts to cheaper space boosters.

The last Titan carried a secret payload for the National Reconnaissance Office, which oversees the nation’s spy satellites.

Titan’s past included many high-profile missions, including boosting Gemini manned spacecraft into orbit in the mid-1960s as preparation for the Apollo moon landings.

The workhorse rocket, originally designed as a weapon-bearing intercontinental ballistic missile for the Cold War, also sent many scientific craft on their way to Mercury, Mars and the outer planets.