SpaceX Falcon 9 Launch June 28, 2024

SpaceX launched a national security mission on behalf of the United States’ National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) from Vandenberg Space Force Base Friday night, June 28. The spy agency described the classified mission as “the second launch of NRO’s proliferated architecture, delivering critical space-based ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) to the nation.”
The Falcon 9 first stage booster supporting this mission, tail number B1081 in the SpaceX fleet, launched for an eighth time. Its previous missions included the launches of the Crew-7 astronaut mission to the International Space Station, two climate monitoring satellites (NASA’s PACE and the European Space Agency’s EarthCARE) and two Starlink flights.
A little more than eight minutes after liftoff, B1081 landed on the droneship, ‘Of Course I Still Love You.’ This was the 95th booster landing for OCISLY and the 326th booster landing to date.