>>9242827 (lb)

>Seeing no separation between his professional and his occult work, Parsons was known to chant Crowley’s poem entitled Hymn to Pan before each test rocket launch.'

Seven years ago, on September 8, 2009, an Atlas V 401 rocket with the serial number AV-018 roared into the sky from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The payload consisted of an unusually hush-hush classified satellite: PAN (USA 207), previously reported on in The Space Review in two contributions by Dwayne Day (see “PAN’s labyrinth”, The Space Review, August 24, 2009, and “PANdora’s box”, September 14, 2009).

PAN was to become the classified satellites buff’s pet mystery: who owns PAN, and what purpose it has, remained highly mysterious for a long time. Although a small group of amateur satellite trackers soon formulated ideas on PAN’s mission based on their own observations, they kept these ideas within a small inner circle for fear of interfering with the satellite’s mission.

New documents from the Snowden files published by The Intercept on September 6, 2016, however, changed the game. With the information from these leaked documents in the open, keeping things within an inner circle no longer seems necessary. The documents confirm some long-standing suspicions. Here is what we know.

Initially it was all a mystery. The PAN launch had no NRO number, and unlike what normally happens, no government agency came forward claiming ownership of the satellite. A launch patch surfaced that showed a rocket emerging from an exhaust cloud featuring a suggestive question mark. The patch also featured the phrase “Palladium At Night”—PAN—which was equally enigmatic and unrevealing. Later, it was rumored that the acronym originally stood for “Pick A Name” (I have it from a good source that this is actually true.)

https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3095/1