Updated May 12, 10:07 a.m. EDT (1407 UTC): The NRO confirms deployment of its satellites.
The National Reconnaissance Office flew its 13th mission supporting an intelligence-gathering constellation it calls the “proliferated architecture” on Monday night.
As with the first dozen missions, this batch of satellites (of an undisclosed quantity) flew to orbit on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The mission, dubbed NROL-172, launched from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base.
Liftoff happened at 7:13:50 p.m. PDT (10:13:50 p.m. EDT / 0213:50 UTC), nearly four hours after the opening of the window.
SpaceX launched the mission using the Falcon 9 first stage booster with the tail number B1097. This was its ninth flight following the launch of the Twilight rideshare, Sentinel-6B, and six batches of Starlink satellites.
