SpaceX is set to launch the Falcon 9 rocket from Florida's Space Coast on Monday afternoon as part of the National Reconnaissance Agency (NRO) classified mission.
The NROL-69 mission is expected to send a secret payload at the lift-off between Cape Canaveral Space Force Station's Space Launch Complex 40 and 1:48pm.
NRO – the federal intelligence agency that runs Recon Satellites – is affiliated with the US Space Force Space Systems Command for the Mission. According to the Orlando Sentinel.
Locals may hear the sonic boom as the booster reaches Canaveral's landing zone 1 for post-launch recovery.
The NROL-69 is one of two missions awarded to Elon Musk's SpaceX in 2021 in a $160 million deal. The mission was originally scheduled to be released by the fall of 2023, but it was delayed.
NROs design, build and operate secret payloads. It is decorated with the Latin phrase nucquan hibernare, or the origami hummingbird emblem with “not hibernation.”
“The hummingbirds show the speed and agility that we can benefit our country and its allies.” I said in a press release. “Our birds have been on alert until now.”
The NRO previously had signed SpaceX for two other missions.
Stapex has been contracted to fly another mission of the agency while Stapex, another Spacecraft Engineering Company, United Launch Alliance, has six flights.
Over the past two years, the NRO has launched more than 150 satellites into Earth's orbit, saying that in the past two years, “producing the largest and most capable government constellations in orbit in our country's history,” the agency said.
There are 12 scheduled for 2025, including four successful releases.
Monday's flight will be the second of the first phase booster, previously used as part of the Starlink mission. Clickorlando reported.
The release comes days after NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Snie Williams successfully jumped off the Florida coast in SpaceX capsules after more than nine months of being stuck on the International Space Station.
