SpaceX today successfully completed its NROL-87 mission, sending up a classified spy satellite for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office.
On Wednesday, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket launched at 12:27 pm PT from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
After stage separation, we saw this newest Falcon 9 rocket build land successfully on Landing Zone 4, back at Vandenberg Space Force Base, in a rare daytime landing attempt–on land. This particular Falcon 9 completed its first launch and landing.
SpaceX says this was the 105th overall successful recovery of an orbital class rocket. This was the fifth SpaceX launch of 2022 and the second of three launches this week. Tomorrow, SpaceX will launch more Starlink satellites into orbit, from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Check out today’s full replay below–as the payload was classified, the broadcast was cut short and did not show deployment of the payload in orbit:
