Carrying clandestine cargo, a Falcon 9 rocket lifted off into clear skies Thursday night at Vandenberg Space Force Base.
The two-stage rocket built by SpaceX blasted off at 8:20 p.m. from Space Launch Complex-4.
Eight minutes later, the first-stage booster, or lower two-thirds of the rocket, landed on the Of Course I Still Love You droneshsip in the Pacific Ocean. Thursday’s flight marked the 20th for the first-stage booster as SpaceX looked to recycle components to reduce costs.
The NROL-113 mission carried a payload for the National Reconnaissance Office, the nation’s spy satellite agency providing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, into space.
Officials typically remain mum about most details of NRO missions, including when or if spacecraft separation occurred or even how many satellites make up the payload.
NRO leaders have said they are moving toward a new approach for what they called “overhead architecture,” or orbiting craft. This means they have switched to sending multiple small satellites into orbit instead of one large, and expansive, spacecraft.
“From last June until the end of this calendar year, we’ll have launched more than 100 satellites,” NRO Director Christopher Scolese said, describing progress on the largest government constellation in history.
He made his comments during an intelligence and security summit, according to the NRO.
Before Thursday night’s mission, Falcon carried two payloads, believed to be sets of satellites, for NRO in May and June from Vandenberg.
“This is NRO’s third proliferated architecture launch within four months, demonstrating the rapid pace of delivery for these systems,” NRO said on social media.
As satellites gain increasing importance in both national security and civilian life, the agency recognizes various threats to the on-orbit assets, Scolese said.
“Civil society relies on space, certainly our military and intelligence community rely on it, so they’re trying to deny our ability to operate in space. Russia and China are the two most capable countries. They have clearly demonstrated that they have weapons that can take us out,” he said.
The agency continues to advance capabilities both in space and on the ground to become faster, more agile and more resilient.
He also spoke about the NRO’s increasing reliance on commercial launches compared to how the government previously purchased rides for space for their satellites.
“That has really reduced the cost of launch, which has allowed us to be far more flexible and to get more capability up there,” he added.
The agency expects multiple launches before the end of 2024 for the new proliferated architecture, another bureaucratic way of saying multiple satellites.
Beyond this year, NRO has said additional missions will occur through 2028 as the agency looks to place hundreds of small satellites into space to increase coverage and provide more timely information to the intelligence and military communities.