On September 22, SpaceX launched another batch of spy satellites for the U.S. government. <\/p>\n
A\u00a0Falcon 9\u00a0rocket<\/a> lifted off from California’s foggy\u00a0Vandenberg Space Force Base\u00a0today (Sept. 22) at 1:38 p.m. EDT (1738 GMT; 10:38 a.m. local California time), on a mission for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), News.Az<\/a> reports citing Space.com.<\/a><\/p>\n That flight, called NROL-48, is the 11th dedicated to building out NRO’s “proliferated architecture,” a new network that relies on large numbers of relatively small, cost-effective reconnaissance and communications\u00a0satellites\u00a0rather than just a few big, expensive ones.<\/p>\n “To stay ahead of the competition and ensure it can continue to operate in a heightened threat environment, the NRO is modernizing its architecture in space and on the ground \u2014 delivering more capability faster with increased resilience,” NRO officials said in a press kit about the proliferated architecture network, which you can find\u00a0here.<\/p>\n “A greater number of satellites \u2014 large and small, government and commercial, in multiple orbits \u2014 will deliver an order of magnitude more signals and images than is available today,” the officials added. “They will provide greater revisit rates, increased coverage, more timely delivery of information \u2014 and ultimately help us deliver more of what our customers need even faster.”<\/p>\n