SpaceX is preparing to launch its fifth launch of the year on behalf of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) shortly after midnight on the West Coast.
The NROL-126 mission will send the latest batch of the NRO’s so-called ‘proliferated architecture’ to low Earth orbit. The payload is believed to be the government variant of Starlink satellites, called ‘Starshield.’
Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) is set for no earlier than 12:10 a.m. PST (3:10 a.m. EST, 0810 UTC).
A little more than eight minutes after liftoff, the Falcon 9 first stage booster will land on the SpaceX droneship, ‘Of Course I Still Love You,’ positioned in the Pacific Ocean.
If successful, this will mark the 111th booster landing on OCISLY and the 377th booster landing to date.
When first announcing the agency’s proliferated architecture, the NRO said there would be six launches for the project in 2024. Since then, they have added two additional missions, NROL-153 and NROL-192, which are scheduled to launch before the end of the year.
“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 – delivering more capability faster with increased resilience,” the NRO wrote in a prelaunch press kit. “A greater number of satellites – large and small, government and commercial, in multiple orbits – will deliver an order of magnitude more signals and images than is available today.
“The NRO continues to build and fortify the largest government constellation in history – enabled by an especially dynamic 18-month period, ending late this year, in which approximately 12 missions will have launched, putting more than 100 payloads on orbit.”
Those missions are listed below, including the launch dates for those which have already flown:
- June 22, 2023 – NROL-68 (ULA – Delta 4 Heavy)
- Sept. 10, 2023 – NROL-107/Silentbarker (ULA – Atlas 5 551)
- March 21, 2024 – NROL-123 (Rocket Lab – Electron)
- April 9, 2024 – NROL-70 (ULA – Delta 4 Heavy)
- May 22, 2024 – NROL-146 (SpaceX – Falcon 9)
- June 28, 2024 – NROL-186 (SpaceX – Falcon 9)
- Sept. 5, 2024 – NROL-113 (SpaceX – Falcon 9)
- Oct. 24, 2024 – NROL-167 (SpaceX – Falcon 9)
- NET Nov. 30, 2024 – NROL-126 (SpaceX – Falcon 9)
- NET Dec. 2024 – NROL-149 (SpaceX – Falcon 9)
- NET Dec. 2024 – NROL-153 (SpaceX – Falcon 9)
- NET Dec. 2024 – NROL-192 (SpaceX – Falcon 9)
The number of satellites onboard the NROL-126 mission has not been disclosed publicly.
