Insider Brief
- A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched U.S. spy satellites under the classified NROL-57 mission for the National Reconnaissance Office, marking the agency’s eighth mission in a shift toward a “proliferated architecture” of smaller, more resilient satellite constellations.
- The rocket lifted off at 11:49 p.m. PST from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California using a first-stage booster that had flown just nine days earlier on NASA’s SPHEREx and PUNCH missions, setting a new record for the fastest reuse of a Falcon 9 booster.
- The booster successfully landed back at Vandenberg 7.5 minutes after launch, completing its fourth flight, with video coverage restricted to stage separation at the NRO’s request.
A SpaceX rocket successfully launched U.S. spy satellites into orbit with the same first-stage booster used just nine days ago.
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off on time at 11:49 p.m. PST from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base’s Space Launch Complex 4 East in California with a classified mission of deploying satellites for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office’s NROL-57 mission.
It’s the eighth launch for NRO’s “proliferated architecture” that is only described as a “constellation of satellites, reflecting the new paradigm for assets the NRO is putting on orbit” representing A “new strategy of a proliferated overhead architecture – numerous, smaller satellites designed for capability and resilience,” according to NRO.
The booster used in the latest launch was used 9 days ago, on March 11, to launch NASA’s SPHEREx and PUNCH missions. The previous record between SpaceX launches using the same booster was about two weeks. The booster landed safely at Vandenberg 7.5 minutes after launch. Overall, it was the fourth launch of the booster, which along with the March 11 NASA mission previously launched NROL-126, Transporter-12,
Video of the launch was limited to only the first stage separation at the request of NRO, according to SpaceX.
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