{"id":5562,"date":"2025-07-13T01:28:04","date_gmt":"2025-07-13T01:28:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/5562\/"},"modified":"2025-07-13T01:28:04","modified_gmt":"2025-07-13T01:28:04","slug":"spacex-to-launch-unspecified-satellite-on-a-falcon-9-rocket-from-cape-canaveral-spaceflight-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/5562\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX to launch unspecified satellite on a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral \u2013 Spaceflight Now"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"File: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stands at Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Image: Adam Bernstein\/Spaceflight Now<\/p>\n

SpaceX is preparing to launch a Falcon 9 rocket with a mysterious payload for a customer avoiding pre-launch publicity.<\/p>\n

The mission, referred to by SpaceX as \u2018Commercial GTO-1,\u2019 is scheduled to launch at the beginning of a 3.5-hour-long window at 1:04 a.m. EDT (0504 UTC) on Sunday, July 13.<\/p>\n

Spaceflight Now will have live coverage beginning about an hour prior to liftoff.<\/p>\n

\ufeff<\/p>\n

SpaceX will use the Falcon 9 booster with the first stage tail number B1083, which will fly for a 13th time. Its previous missions included NASA\u2019s Crew-8, Polaris Dawn and CRS-31.<\/p>\n

Roughly 8.5 minutes after liftoff, B1083 will target a landing on SpaceX\u2019s droneship, \u2018Just Read the Instructions.\u2019 If successful, this will be the 128th touchdown for this vessel and the 474th booster landing to date.<\/p>\n

Mystery payload, mystery customer<\/p>\n

The mission is concealed by a veil of secrecy not often applied by commercial customers of SpaceX. Publicly available marine and air warnings confirm that this satellite is heading into a geostationary transfer orbit.<\/p>\n

According to an article<\/a> by Walla! Communications Ltd., a subsidiary of The Jerusalem Post based in Tel Aviv, Israel, and some U.S.-based publications, the satellite is Dror 1, a satellite developed by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI).<\/p>\n

\"\"An artist\u2019s rendering of the Israel Aerospace Industries\u2019 (IAI) Dror 1 satellite. Graphic: IAI<\/p>\n

The company announced<\/a> the development of the satellite in January 2020 and said it was designed to operate for 15 years. IAI said the satellite would be developed by its Systems, Missile and Space Group.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are excited to move forward with Dror 1, the most advanced communication satellite ever built in Israel,\u201d said Boaz Levy, IAI\u2019s executive vice president and general manager of the SMS Group. \u201cIt will comprise numerous state-of-the-art technologies created here in Israel and contain highly-advanced digital capabilities.<\/p>\n

The Dror 1 satellite is designed to operate in geostationary Earth orbit, about 36,000 km in altitude. IAI said its January 2020 press release that the satellite is part of a 2018 Israeli strategy to establish an on orbit communications system designed for its national interests.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis government decision stems from the understanding that the capability for communication independence is of critical national importance, as well as to enable the preservation of the knowledge and expertise that has been accumulated by Israel over the past years,\u201d IAI wrote.<\/p>\n

According to a 2020 writeup<\/a> on the satellite in the Jewish News Syndicate (JNS), a news agency focused on topics concerning Israel and other Jewish people around the world, the four-ton satellite features a number of components from Israel and is designed to be modular in capability, like a smartphone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a fully digital satellite that can upload applications. It can broadcast data from one antenna and receive from another,\u201d said Shlomi Sudri, general manager of IAI\u2019s Space Division, told JNS.<\/p>\n

The satellite appears to be part of IAI\u2019s AMOS communications satellite series. These are multi-band satellite buses that are in the 3-6 ton class.<\/p>\n

The last AMOS payload built by IAI to be placed atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, AMOS 6, was destroyed when an explosion occurred in the rocket\u2019s upper stage on Sept. 1, 2016 prior to a planned static test fire.<\/p>\n

\ufeff<\/p>\n

While rare, the Commercial GTO-1 mission isn\u2019t the first time SpaceX has been asked by a customer to avoid disclosing details publicly. Launches for the National Reconnaissance Office and the U.S. Space Force are often kept under wraps, because of national security reasons.<\/p>\n

In November 2024, SpaceX launched a mission simply referred to as TD7. Regulatory filings called the payload \u2018Optus-X,\u2019 which was connected to a company called Optus, a company connected to SingTel Australia Investment Ltd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"File: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stands at Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5563,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[79,193],"class_list":["post-5562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}