{"id":553530,"date":"2026-07-16T23:46:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T23:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/553530\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T23:46:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T23:46:11","slug":"spacex-launches-21-data-transport-satellites-for-us-military-photos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/553530\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX launches 21 ‘data transport’ satellites for US military (photos)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Starship isn’t the only SpaceX rocket flying today.<\/p>\n

A Falcon 9<\/a> rocket launched from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base<\/a> today (July 16), carrying 21 satellites for the U.S. military’s advanced new “Tranche 1 Transport Layer” (T1TL) constellation to orbit.<\/p>\n

Liftoff took place at 4:32 p.m. EDT (2032 GMT; 1:32 p.m. local California time).<\/p>\n

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\"A\n<\/p>\n

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches the Third Tranche 1 Mission for the U.S. Space Development Agency from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on July 16, 2026. (Image credit: SpaceX)<\/p>\n

SpaceX’s Starship<\/a> megarocket \u2014 the biggest and most powerful launch vehicle ever built \u2014 is slated to make its 13th test flight<\/a> a few hours later. It will lift off from the company’s Starbase site in South Texas during a 90-minute window that opens at 6:45 p.m. EDT (2245 GMT; 5:45 p.m. local Texas time).<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

SpaceX will stream that mission live, and Space.com will carry the feed<\/a>. Coverage will begin about half an hour before launch.<\/p>\n

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Today’s Falcon 9 flight helps assemble the T1TL, a network in low Earth orbit<\/a> (LEO) that will be operated by the U.S. Space Force<\/a>‘s Space Development Agency (SDA).<\/p>\n

The T1TL “will provide global communications access and deliver persistent regional encrypted connectivity in support of warfighter missions around the globe,” SDA officials wrote in a explainer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Space\"<\/p>\n

The T1TL will eventually consist of 126 satellites, which will be built by York Space Systems, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. Sixty-three of the spacecraft have now launched to date, on three Falcon 9 launches from Vandenberg \u2014 one last September<\/a>, another last October<\/a> and today.<\/p>\n

These 126 spacecraft will be part of a larger LEO network that the SDA calls the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture.<\/p>\n

The PWSA is “a proliferated constellation of hundreds of optically linked small satellites, in low-Earth orbit (LEO), delivering capability at speed to the warfighter,” SDA officials wrote in a Tranche 1 fact sheet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What to read next<\/p>\n

“SDA leverages spiral development to deploy and proliferate new capability into a new generation of the PWSA every two years, called a ‘tranche,’ to continually increase capability used by the warfighter,” they added.<\/p>\n

\n

\"a\n<\/p>\n

The first stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket rests on a drone ship after launching the Third Tranche 1 Mission for the U.S. Space Development Agency on July 16, 2026. (Image credit: SpaceX)<\/p>\n

Previous Booster 1103 launches<\/p>\n

NROL-179<\/a> | 2 Starlink missions<\/p>\n

Everything went according to plan today, at least during the mission’s early stages. The Falcon 9’s first stage came back to Earth about 8.5 minutes after liftoff for a landing in the Pacific Ocean, on the drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You.” According to a SpaceX mission description<\/a>, it was the fourth flight for this particular booster, which is designated 1103.<\/p>\n

The Falcon 9’s upper stage continued hauling the 21 satellites to LEO. We don’t know when or exactly where they’ll be deployed; the SpaceX mission description doesn’t provide that information, and the company cut off its launch webcast shortly after booster landing at the request of the SDA.<\/p>\n

Editor’s note: This story was updated at 4:44 p.m. ET on July 16 with news of successful launch and booster landing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Starship isn’t the only SpaceX rocket flying today. A Falcon 9 rocket launched from California’s Vandenberg Space Force…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553531,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[61,60,82,247],"class_list":["post-553530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=553530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}