That height is equivalent to stacking seven school buses nose-to-tail and the mass of 557 average American cars.
ULA doesn’t fly the Delta IV Heavy very often. It’s an expensive vehicle. This rocket is only used for big, heavy satellites, that need to be launched into higher orbits.
The rocket’s payload is NROL-44, and like all NRO missions, its purpose is classified.
The NRO press release claims that “NROL-44 supports NRO’s overall national security mission to provide intelligence data to the United States’ senior policymakers, the Intelligence Community and Department of Defense.” ULA previously launched 29 NRO missions, many of them requiring the Delta IV Heavy.
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