A second set of spy satellites will ride a Falcon 9 rocket into orbit as soon as Friday night from Vandenberg Space Force Base, prompting the closure of Jalama Beach County Park. 

Liftoff reportedly will aim for 8:14 p.m. from Space Launch Complex-4 on South Base, providing another twilight departure that could attract attention from hundreds of miles away. 

The launch window will close at 10:15 p.m., SpaceX said.

If needed, a backup opportunity is available starting at 8 p.m. Saturday.

Jalama Beach County Park, just south of Vandenberg, will be closed from 5 p.m. to 10:15 p.m. Friday night, Santa Barbara County officials announced Thursday. 

“Vandenberg Space Force Base has issued a last-minute notice of a National Security launch that requires Jalama Beach to be evacuated,” county officials said on social media. 

Impacts of Vandenberg’s launch rate increase on Jalama has been the focus of concern among regulators. 

This is will be the first launch since last summer that will require the temporary evacuation of Jalama Beach, which has more than 100 sites for camping.

For this mission, the first-stage booster will land on the Of Course I Still Love You droneship positioned in the Pacific Ocean hundreds of miles south of the Central Coast.

The SpaceX rocket will carry the second mission for the National Reconnaissance Office’s next generation of satellites or what they call a “proliferated architecture.”

That phrase reflects the spy satellite agency’s switch from large spacecraft to hundreds of smaller satellites to provide critical space-based intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance to the nation. 

NRO hasn’t said how many satellites will be lifted into space for the NROL-186 mission.

In May, a Falcon 9 rocket carried the first batch of NRO’s newest satellites into orbit from Vandenberg, reportedly delivering approximately 20 spacecraft.

A live webcast of the mission is scheduled to begin on the SpaceX account on X (formerly Twitter) about 10 minutes before liftoff.