SpaceX ended a record year by launching its 26th Falcon 9 rocket on Saturday, the second in less than a week, to launch a classified National Reconnaissance Bureau satellite into orbit.
The NROL-108 payload was a surprise added late to the SpaceX launch manifesto. The builder and purpose of the satellite are mysteries, reminiscent of the same mysteries The “Zuma” payload launched by SpaceX in January 2018. Zuma got lost in a kind of misfortune shortly after arriving in space and no details ever appeared about his mission or even what agency he owned.
Anyway, the year-end SpaceX mission got off to a spectacular start as the first leg of Falcon 9, making its fifth flight, thundering at 9:00 AM ET, pushing the thin rocket away from the pad Kennedy Space’s historic 39A Focus on the £ 1.7 million peak.
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The launch took place two days later than planned, due to higher-than-normal pressure in the second-ray liquid oxygen tank, which triggered a last-minute “automatic abortion” on Thursday. SpaceX did not provide further details on this issue or how it was resolved before Saturday.
The NROL-108 payload was launched on a generally northeasterly trajectory. Either it was aimed at a low orbit, or it was a relatively light satellite – or both – because the first stage remained enough fuel after leaving the lower atmosphere to reverse course and fly back to landing at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station
It was the 22nd SpaceX landing at launch, the 19th in Florida, with three others in California. Overall, the company has now recovered 70 boosters from the first stage in December 2015, including 48 aboard offshore drones.
SpaceX closed its launch comments on the booster touchdown and, as usual with the classified NRO missions, no details were provided about the performance of the second stage, the presumed deployment of the NROL-108 satellite or its initial orbit.
“NROL-108 carries a national security payload designed, built and operated by the National Reconnaissance Bureau,” the NRO said in response to a question from Spaceflight Now. “Additional details about the payload and its mission are protected. The name or names of the contractor or contractors associated with the construction of this payload are / are also protected.”
SpaceX
Amateur satellite analysts trying to track classified payloads had no perspective on the nature of the satellite.
It was the third NRO satellite sent this year, including one launched on top of one United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket on November 13 and another launched by a ULA Delta 4 Heavy rocket on December 10.
Despite a pandemic that slowed work on critical projects in the aerospace industry in 2020, SpaceX launched a record 26 Falcon 9s, including a sub-orbital test flight, bringing the company’s total to 103 since the rocket’s launch in 2010, including 106 three triple-core Falcon Heavies. The company’s previous one-year record, set in 2018, was 21.
SpaceX flights in 2020 included 14 launches of Starlink internet relay satellites, two goods delivery missions to the International Space Station, the first two manned flights of the SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule and a dramatic in-flight test of the capsule’s emergency abortion system.
Crew Dragons transported six astronauts to the International Space Station, two on a test flight that released on May 30 and crashed on 2 and 4 August on the first operational flight of the ferry, launch on November 15. The four “Crew 1” astronauts are expected to stay up until next month.