Multiple spacecraft belonging to the National Reconnaissance Office arrived in orbit early Tuesday courtesy of a Falcon 9 rocket that lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base.
Departing at 5:19 a.m. from Space Launch Complex-4, the SpaceX rocket’s first-stage booster accomplished its twenty second liftoff and touchdown.
That booster later touched down on the Of Course I Still Love You drone ship within the Pacific Ocean.
The rocket carried a set of Starshield satellites for the NRO, which manufactures and launches the nation’s top-secret spacecraft.
NRO representatives remained mum in regards to the variety of satellites aboard the rocket however dubbed the mission profitable
The mission marked the sixth of the NRO’s new constellation of small satellites and eighth success for NRO this 12 months.
“This mission continues the NRO’s cutting-edge functionality of constructing and creating the U.S. authorities’s largest satellite tv for pc constellation in historical past to ship essential data that may solely be obtained from the vantage level of house,” Atticus Vadera, a SpaceX propulsion engineer, stated in the course of the livestream.
Explaining the options of the mission emblem depicting the constellation of satellites, NRO officers famous the tagline “”Strength in Numbers.”
That “describes the NRO’s new technique of a proliferated overhead structure – quite a few, smaller satellites designed for functionality and resilience,” NRO stated.
Additional launches for NRO’s new proliferated structure are anticipated via 2028, based on NRO.
For NRO, the launch completes “an particularly dynamic 18-month interval,” starting with NROL-68 in June 2023 and ending now in December 2024 with NROL-149,” officers stated.
“During this era, 10 missions have launched, efficiently delivering greater than 100 payloads on orbit,” NRO officers stated.
Tuesday’s mission signaled the forty fourth Falcon 9 rocket launch of 2024 from Vandenberg and the forty ninth liftoff of the 12 months on the West Coast launch base.
