A Titan 4 rocket roared through a narrow break in the gray, rainy skies over Brevard County on Saturday afternoon, delivering to orbit a satellite that would warn the U.S. of a nuclear missile launch.

The monster booster was the next to last of the Titan 4s scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral, bringing the U.S. Air Force and Lockheed Martin Corp. one step closer to the end of a project that has employed thousands of Brevard Countians over the last four decades.

Atop the rocket was a 5,000-pound Defense Support Program Satellite that is part of a network of orbiting sentries that sense the heat generated when ballistic missiles launch or nuclear weapons detonate on Earth. The first of the satellites launched in 1970, but the spacecraft have been modernized over the three decades since to improve their capability.