Skip to content

All the news that matters, in plain English.

Latest
  1. Anti-migrant activist Daniel Thomas arrested on suspicion of criminal damage after Channel dinghy slashing
  2. US cities take on the FCC over its plan to override local broadband rules
  3. Glasgow City Council to sack and rehire more than 20,000 staff in pay row
  4. Judge declines to approve $110bn Paramount–Warner Bros merger settlement and demands more answers
  5. NHS staff to be suspended on the spot if suspected of snooping on patient records
  6. Inquest hears Noah Woods, 3, left playground 'through a gap in the fence' before lake death
  7. Susan Sarandon and Hannah Einbinder among about 100 arrested at Netanyahu UN protest
  8. Stormont budget talks in 'no-deal territory' as Givan accuses Bryant of 'laissez-faire' approach

Satellite Internet

SpaceX to launch classified USSF-385 Space Force mission from Vandenberg

SpaceX is set to launch the classified USSF-385 mission for the U.S. Space Force from Vandenberg before dawn on Saturday, in what would be the sixth and final Falcon 9 launch of the month from the California base.

By Tom Ellery · · 1 min read

SpaceX will attempt to launch a classified mission for the U.S. Space Force before dawn on Saturday from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

Liftoff of the USSF-385 mission aboard a Falcon 9 is scheduled for 5:56 a.m. PDT (12:56 UTC) at the opening of a three-hour launch window from Space Launch Complex 4-East, with the rocket flying a southerly trajectory out over the Pacific. A second named report confirms the Saturday, Sept. 26 window and notes a backup opportunity the following day if the attempt is delayed.

Trade-press analysis, not an official statement, suggests USSF-385 may be the third in a series of flights deploying satellites based on SpaceX’s Starshield, the government-oriented version of Starlink. The Space Force disclosed no details of the mission, but 23 satellites were catalogued in orbit after each of the two earlier flights, USSF-366 on Aug. 15 and USSF-153 on Sept. 10. A similar mission, USSF-259, went to a different orbit on Sept. 17 with 17 satellites.

The first-stage booster, B1100, is flying for a 10th time and will attempt to land on the drone ship Of Course I Still Love You about eight and a half minutes after launch.

The flight would be the sixth and final Falcon 9 launch of the month from Vandenberg, which has become SpaceX’s primary Falcon site as Cape Canaveral shifts toward Starship operations — only one Falcon 9 flew from the East Coast in September.

Sources

More on this topic: all Satellite Internet stories

Get Flip News by email

This opens your email app — we add you manually. No account, no spam, no third parties.