SpaceX plans to launch one other batch of U.S. spy satellites early Saturday morning (Nov. 30).
A Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to raise off from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base on Saturday throughout a four-hour window that opens at 3:10 a.m. EST (0810 GMT; 12:10 a.m. native time). The rocket will probably be carrying a set of spacecraft for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), in addition to 20 of SpaceX’s personal Starlink broadband spacecraft,
SpaceX normally livestreams its missions through X, starting 5 to fifteen minutes earlier than launch. However, the corporate’s mission description does not point out something a few webcast for this liftoff.
Saturday’s mission, referred to as NROL-126, would be the fifth launch to assist the NRO’s “proliferated structure.” All of the launches up to now have been carried out by SpaceX.
Related: SpaceX launches next-gen US spy satellites on a hundredth Falcon 9 flight of the 12 months (video, photographs)
The time period “proliferated structure” describes a “new paradigm for property the NRO is placing on orbit,” the company, which operates the nation’s fleet of spy satellites, stated in an NROL-126 mission description.
Those property are “quite a few, smaller satellites designed for functionality and resilience,” in keeping with the NRO. That’s a break from the NRO’s conventional technique, which relied on a number of extremely succesful, however very costly and troublesome to interchange, eyes within the sky.
We do not know a lot in regards to the “proliferated structure” satellites; the actions and talents of NRO craft are typically labeled. However, these new spacecraft are believed to be based mostly on SpaceX’s Starlink satellites, with some fancy, labeled sensors hooked up.
If all goes in keeping with plan on Saturday, the Falcon 9’s first stage will come again to Earth about eight minutes after liftoff for a touchdown on the SpaceX drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You” within the Pacific Ocean.
It would be the first launch and touchdown for this explicit booster, in keeping with SpaceX’s mission description. The Starlink satellites will probably be deployed into low Earth orbit about 62 minutes after liftoff. The mission description does not say when the NRO craft will separate from the Falcon 9’s higher stage.
The first 4 proliferated structure missions additionally lifted off atop Falcon 9 rockets this 12 months — NROL-146 in May, NROL-186 in June, NROL-113 in September and NROL-167 in October.
NROL-167 marked the a hundredth flight of 2024 for a Falcon 9, extending SpaceX’s report for many liftoffs in a single 12 months. The 2024 tally for the workhorse rocket now stands at 118. Nearly 70% of these missions have been Starlink launches.
