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File: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is seen in the launch position at Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base on Jan. 16, 2026, ahead of the launch of the NROL-105 mission for the National Reconnaissance Office. Image: SpaceX<\/p>\nFile: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is seen in the launch position at Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base on Jan. 16, 2026, ahead of the launch of the NROL-105 mission for the National Reconnaissance Office. Image: SpaceX<\/p>\n
SpaceX is preparing to fly its latest national security payload for the United States Space Force with a Falcon 9 rocket launch scheduled for Thursday morning.<\/p>\n
The mission, designated USSF-153, will carry an undisclosed number of satellites to low Earth orbit. Because of the nature of the flight, SpaceX didn\u2019t publish a post-launch timeline beyond the booster landing nearly 8.5 minutes into flight.<\/p>\n
Liftoff of the Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base is scheduled during a three-hour window that opens at 8:37 a.m. PDT (1137 a.m. EDT \/ 1537 UTC).<\/p>\n
Spaceflight Now will have live coverage beginning about 30 minutes prior to liftoff.<\/p>\n
\ufeff<\/p>\n
SpaceX will launch the mission using the Falcon 9 first stage booster with the tail number B1081. This will be its 27th after previously launching four missions for NASA; two missions for each of the National Reconnaissance Office, the European Space Agency, and rideshare customers; and 16 batches of Starlink satellites.<\/p>\n
A successful landing of B1081 on the SpaceX droneship, Of Course I Still Love You, would represent the 224th landing on this vessel and the 660th Falcon booster to date.<\/p>\n
The USSF-153 mission will be SpaceX\u2019s fifth mission this year supporting national security-related payloads. Previous mission include:<\/p>\n
Jan. 16 \u2013 NROL-105
\nMay 11 \u2013 NROL-172
\nJuly 16 \u2013 Space Development Agency\u2019s Third Tranche 1 Mission
\nAug. 15 \u2013 USSF-366<\/p>\n
The most recent of those, USSF-366, was procured as part of the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase 3 Lane 1 contract, according to Space Systems Command. However, further information about that mission was not provided, both before and after completion of the launch.<\/p>\n
Spaceflight Now reached out to SSC regarding the USSF-153 mission and will update this story if a response is given.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"File: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is seen in the launch position at Space Launch Complex 4 East…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":842482,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[79,193],"class_list":["post-842481","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\/842481","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=842481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/842482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=842481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=842481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=842481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}