{"id":793701,"date":"2026-07-30T16:55:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T16:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/793701\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T16:55:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T16:55:13","slug":"spacex-launches-secret-us-spy-satellite-from-florida-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/793701\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX launches secret US spy satellite from Florida (video)"},"content":{"rendered":"

SpaceX launched a secret reconnaissance mission for the U.S. government early on Thursday morning (July 30).<\/p>\n

A Falcon 9<\/a> rocket lifted off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station<\/a> on Thursday, kicking off the mission for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) called NROL-95.<\/p>\n

The launch occurred at 3:10 a.m. EDT (0710 GMT).<\/p>\n

\n

\"The\n<\/p>\n

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches the NROL-95 mission for the National Reconnaissance Office from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on July 30, 2026. (Image credit: SpaceX)<\/p>\n

We know very little about NROL-95; the NRO, which operates the country’s fleet of spy satellites<\/a>, has provided no details about the payload or its activities.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The agency has revealed the NROL-95 mission patch. It depicts a snarling ferret with a nighttime sky in the background and the words “We are the Champions” on the emblem’s lower border.<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

“The ferret, a clever creature, embodies agility and resilience \u2014 key traits for exploration. Its confident grin and bright eyes reflect a spirit of victory in a realm where determination meets adventure,” NRO officials said in an NROL-95 mission description<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“The bold phrase ‘We are the Champions’ encapsulates the camaraderie and pride shared among those on this purposeful mission,” they added.<\/p>\n

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

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\"circular\n<\/p>\n

The patch for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office’s NROL-95 mission. (Image credit: NRO)<\/p>\n

NROL-95 was the fourth NRO launch of 2026. The other three \u2014 NROL-105<\/a> in January, NROL-172 in May and NROL-179 in June \u2014 also flew aboard Falcon 9s, but from Vandenberg Space Force Base<\/a> in California.<\/p>\n

Those three other missions were devoted to building out the NRO’s “proliferated architecture” constellation, which will consist of hundreds of relatively small, cost-efficient reconnaissance satellites in Earth orbit.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, the Falcon 9’s first stage came back to Earth for a landing at Cape Canaveral about 8.5 minutes after liftoff. It was the seventh mission for this particular booster, according to a SpaceX mission description<\/a>.<\/p>\n

SpaceX cut off its livestream shortly thereafter, at the request of the agency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SpaceX launched a secret reconnaissance mission for the U.S. government early on Thursday morning (July 30). A Falcon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":793702,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[79,193],"class_list":["post-793701","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\/793701","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=793701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/793702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=793701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=793701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=793701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}