The launch wasn't secret at all, since it was being broadcasted live for anyone interested in watching it. At the moment, that consisted of a few rocket science fans who tuned in, but most of the watchers were the Edenian citizens themselves. They were absolutely thrilled to watch their first domestically made launch take place. A good example of how huge the interest to the launch was for the citizens of the country was that the launch was being broadcast through nearly all of the domestic news channels, which all had a higher viewership than their usual average for that specific time.
Although they hadn't been planning on keeping it a secret, they still hadn't planned to announce it, but that idea was squashed as the news of them applying for more than fifty orbital spots was leaked by someone from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).
They'd had to apply, because first, it was required to be given a specific band of frequencies that weren't yet used in those orbits. That way they could avoid having more than one satellite in the same orbit using the same frequencies, which is something no one wanted to experience—anyone who had ever put a microphone too close to a speaker it was hooked up to would know exactly why. Another reason was that if they arbitrarily launched a rocket without telling anyone, it raised the possibility of it being considered a ballistic missile and might even be shot down. In the absolute worst-case scenario, it could even trigger a nuclear event. Even though Aron could create a new frequency, and even though he could use orbits that were impossible for modern technology to reach, and even though he and his close friends and loved ones would be perfectly fine in case of nuclear war, the Earth was still his home, and he didn't want it destroyed.
He kept all his stuff there.
Plus, it would make the next few months of Alexander's life hell, as even if it didn't trigger the worst-case scenario, it would still be quite an international incident that risked having Eden face serious sanctions.
Thus, they decided to benefit from GAIA Tech's publicity department and made an announcement publicizing the launch. It was pretty much common knowledge that "communications satellites" was just a polite euphemism for "spy satellites", though, so the reaction was understandable.
...
NASA Mission Control Center, Merritt Island, Florida.
A group of people were focusing on screens that showed different strings of data, with the main display mounted on the wall in the front of the room showing a satellite feed. At the moment, half of the screen was showing a satellite feed filled with the image of a cloud bank that limited the visibility of the island beneath it.
The other half of the screen showed the Edenian livestream of the launch. Currently visible on that side of the screen was a massive rocket with the GAIA Technologies, Inc. logo on the side of it; the countdown was currently at T minus one minute.
The moment the countdown reached thirty seconds, everyone started focusing on the screens in front of them. They only occasionally glanced at the massive screen in the room as they watched the data feeds on the screens in front of them.
When the rocket lifted off, there was nothing but silence in the room. None of the people there wanted to disrupt another person's concentration, as they were sure that the rocket would most likely face an unplanned rapid disassembly—or in other words, blow up—and they didn't want the distraction to cause them to miss it.
Alas, nothing of that sort happened as the satellite footage on the main screen showed the rocket punching through the clouds and leaving a brief gap in them. With all of the satellites focused on that unnatural-looking cloud bank, they had collected nearly a petabyte of data on the island beneath it for later use and analysis.
The more they waited for the rocket to fail, the more anxious they grew as the launch reached its parking orbit without any problems. It was practically a miracle, as they knew that it was the first launch of an upstart company with no previous experience or reputable experts.
"Now that's gonna generate a mountain of long paperwork for us," the team leader sighed. He was the one responsible for monitoring the launch in case it turned out to be an ICBM test or something similar.
"We'd better get started on it, since the moment it reaches its destination we'll have to include that in the report. So by that time, we'd better be done with the first part of the report if we don't want to spend the next week on it," said the assistant team leader as he tried to hide his impressed expression.
The same was happening for China, Russia, and any other country that had orbital surveillance capabilities. A country with oil and other resources having the ability to launch exoatmospheric missiles was something they wanted to be as aware of as possible.
...
With the successful launch, celebration was in the air in Eden. People were happy and proud that their country had done something that not every country had managed to do. Especially without help, at least from what they'd heard, as no company had yet to come out and said that they were doing joint research. Sensitive technology like that was generally never done cooperatively, as anyone who could successfully launch a rocket into space could just attach powerful explosives to one and send it to a certain direction on earth. Thus, rockets were very strictly regulated, classified technology.
GAIA technology had just posted about the successful launch and their joy that it had gone well, then announced that they would be continuing the rest of their launches as planned. It was only made possible because they had different orbital slots for each launch. That allowed them to rapidly process launches at different times, as every time they had an orbital window, they could launch another one without having to wait for the lanes to clear.
And they really kept that promise; their livestream ran 24/7, even showing the rockets being transported, though only partly through their journey. They weren't about to show a livestream of the Cube, after all.
Practically every six hours, another rocket would be successfully launched, to the point that it was an ongoing cycle. By the time one satellite was in its transfer orbit, a previously launched satellite would be ready for the final verifications. The whole sequence of launches was really abnormal; they weren't even doing a single test before each rocket was loaded into the gantry and launched soon after.
Still, they were all successful launches. Some people called it luck, but they were continuously proven wrong over the next week, as the livestream wasn't cut even once. If it weren't for the changes in the air and the day/night cycle, they would have thought that it was a looped video.
The act of sequential launches with a 100% success rate had caused a number of countries to grow nervous, as the more successful launches there were, the more important the resulting investigations would be. Everyone considered the launches an impossibility; not even "big" countries like the US and Russia had a perfect track record in their space programs, after all. So for an upstart company like GAIA to muscle their way into the space race—which was a game for industrialized, "first world" nations to play in—while still being categorized as a "developing nation", something must have gone wrong. Someone, somewhere, had leaked something that gave GAIA their technology.
And that could not be allowed to stand, so a massive mole hunt began in the spacefaring nations.
But it wasn't just countries that were interested. Even people who normally didn't care about the space race or think it would ever have anything to do with them grew interested in Eden's nascent space program. And along with the increase in attention came odds and betting sites, which was something that Nova was taking full advantage of.
