When he’s not scaring the crap out of Twitter’s Board of Directors, Elon Musk is helping our U.S. National Reconnaissance Office get classified spy satellites into space. On Sunday, the NROL-85 mission blasted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base, northwest of Los Angeles, California. This Falcon 9 reusable rocket was the exact same one to boost Uncle Sam’s last secret NRO payload, in February.
Spy satellites need SpaceX
On Sunday, April 17, at 6:13 a.m., our U.S. National Reconnaissance Office flung a classified NROL-85 spy satellite, or two, into space as one of three missions awarded by the Air Force to SpaceX in 2019.
At the time, the treasury shelled out a combined fixed price of $297 million. This one clocked 1.7 million pounds of thrust at takeoff.
The NRO is one of those spooky government spy agencies. These guys are “in charge of developing, building, launching and maintaining U.S. satellites that provide intelligence data to senior policymakers, the intelligence community and the Defense Department.”
Based on the military procurement documents which independent space analysts got their hands on, matched up with “launch time and a variety of other factors,” they came to the conclusion that “the Falcon 9 was carrying two Naval Ocean Surveillance System satellites that can electronically monitor and locate ships at sea.”
All the NRO has to say about the mission is that whatever is inside the NROL-85 payload involves “critical national security.” Probably a matched pair of cubesats in great position to spy on ship movements. The feds are proud to be able to tell the public about something.
“NROL-85 is the first NRO mission to reuse a SpaceX rocket booster, and is the second Falcon 9 launch procured through the National Security Space Launch contract to launch from the Western Range,” their official statement notes.
A routine mission
It was just another routine mission for the first stage booster rocket. While logging it’s second official flight, the launch stage “took off on a southerly trajectory, boosting the upper stage and its NRO payload out of the dense lower atmosphere.” It didn’t take long.
“Two-and-a-half minutes after launch, the booster rocket began to fall away.” The spy cameras flew on as planned.
Having served it’s main purpose, the booster stage “flipped around.” It has three onboard engines allowing the craft to “change course back to Vandenberg, touching down on Landing Zone 4 about eight minutes after liftoff.” Elon Musk is getting a solid track record. This is the 14th SpaceX flight so far this year.
NRO Director Chris Scolese is “proud of the teamwork, skill and determination that went into making this launch a success.” The spy cameras are desperately needed. and ultimately to delivering critical information to our nation’s policymakers, military, and intelligence community.”
Colonel Robert Bongiovi, who’s business cards say he’s director of the Space Systems Command’s Launch Enterprise, has nothing but praise for Musk and his team. “It was superb. The integrated team, the rocket, the satellite, everything was go and this launch went smoothly.”
Now they can track everything from illicit Iranian oil tankers to secret Chinese warships. Maybe these spy satellites can find where all the Chinese merchandise is that’s not being unloaded at the port of Los Angeles.
