SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying an undisclosed number of satellites on behalf of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). The spacecraft, believed to be Starshield satellites, make up the third batch of what the NRO calls its “proliferated architecture.”
Liftoff for the NROL-113 mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base occurred at 8:20 p.m. PDT (11:20 p.m. EDT, 0320 UTC).
The Falcon 9 rocket supporting this mission, whose tail number is B1063, will be launching for the 20th time. It previously supported launches for NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), the Transporter-7 rideshare mission, and 14 Starlink satellite missions.
This is the most recent launch of a booster rocket on a national security mission on behalf of the NRO. The previous record was held by NROL-146, another Starshield launch, which lifted off on B1071's 16th flight.
About 8.5 minutes after liftoff, B1063 will land on SpaceX's unmanned spacecraft, Of Course I Still Love You. If successful, this will be the 100th landing on this unmanned spacecraft and the 345th rocket landing to date.
“This is NRO’s third Proliferated Architecture release in four months, demonstrating the rapid pace of delivery of these systems,” the NRO wrote in a social media post on Sept. 4. mail.
The NRO plans to launch around six missions for this proliferated constellation by 2024. latest The launch took place on June 29, 2024.
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