SpaceX Launches Secret Zuma Mission for US Government, Lands Rocket

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https://www.space.com/38826-spacex-launches-secret-zuma-mission-lands-rocket.html

SpaceX lofted the super-secret Zuma spacecraft for the U.S. government tonight (Jan. 8), successfully executing a mission that also featured yet another landing by the first stage of the company's Falcon 9 rocket.

The Falcon 9 lifted off at 8 p.m. EST (0100 GMT on Jan. 9) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, on Florida's Space Coast.

The booster's two stages separated 2 minutes and 19 seconds into flight. The second stage continued carrying the mysterious Zuma to its destination in low-Earth orbit (LEO), while the first stage began maneuvering its way back to terra firma for a touchdown at Landing Zone 1, a SpaceX facility at Cape Canaveral. [How SpaceX Lands Falcon 9 Rockets]

The first stage aced that landing, a little less than 8 minutes after taking off.

SpaceX now has 21 successful first-stage touchdowns under its belt, nine of them at Landing Zone 1 and the other 12 on "autonomous spaceport droneships" stationed in the ocean. (SpaceX has two of these uncrewed vessels, which are named "Just Read the Instructions" and "Of Course I Still Love You.")

These landings are part of SpaceX's effort to develop fully reusable rockets and spacecraft — technology that company founder and CEO Elon Musk has said will slash the cost of spaceflight. To date, SpaceX has re-flown five of these landed boosters, as well as two of its uncrewed Dragon cargo capsules, which make resupply runs to the International Space Station. (The Falcon 9 that lifted off tonight was brand-new.)

But the main goal of tonight's flight was getting Zuma aloft, so the spacecraft can start going about its business. Just what that business may be is unclear; little has been revealed about the payload.

We do know that aerospace and defense company Northrop Grumman procured Zuma's launch atop a Falcon 9 for the U.S. government — but we don't know which agency will operate the satellite, or if its mission is civilian or military.

Northrop Grumman did reveal that Zuma is going to LEO, but that information doesn't tell us much; this range of altitudes houses a variety of spacecraft, from reconnaissance, weather and communications satellites to the International Space Station. And we don't know what Zuma's exact orbit is (though it's a safe bet that amateur satellite trackers will be working hard over the coming days and weeks to figure that out).

If Zuma is a national-security mission, it wouldn't be the first one that SpaceX has launched. Falcon 9s also launched a satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office in May 2017 and the Air Force's robotic X-37B space plane this past September.

The Zuma mission was originally supposed to launch in mid-November, but SpaceX stood down for a while to study data from payload-fairing test performed for another customer. (The payload fairing is the protective nose cone that encases a spacecraft during launch.)

 

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Secret spy satellite may be lost after SpaceX launch
Samantha Masunaga Samantha MasunagaContact Reporter

A highly classified spy satellite appears to have been lost after its launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida aboard a SpaceX rocket Sunday, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Asked to comment, Hawthorne-based SpaceX issued a statement Monday afternoon: “We do not comment on missions of this nature; but as of right now reviews of the data indicate Falcon 9 performed nominally.”

A spokesman for Northrop Grumman Corp., which built the satellite estimated to be worth more than $1 billion, said: “This is a classified mission. We cannot comment on classified missions.”

The secret satellite, called Zuma, was built for the U.S. government, although it is unclear which part of it. It was supposed to separate after the firing of the second stage of a Falcon 9 rocket. The Journal cited government and industry officials who were briefed on the mission and said the satellite didn’t separate and plunged back into the atmosphere.

SpaceX was originally set to launch the Zuma mission in November, but the company tweeted at the time that it was postponing the mission “to take a closer look at data from recent fairing testing for another customer.”

SpaceX has been rapidly expanding its launch business, which includes NASA, national security and commercial missions. The company has recently ramped up its launch pace, even launching two missions from opposite coasts within about 48 hours.

SpaceX launched two other national security missions last year — a satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office in May and the Pentagon’s autonomous space plane known as the X-37B in September.

In 2015, SpaceX was certified by the U.S. Air Force to launch national security satellites. That broke up a longtime and lucrative monopoly held by a joint venture between Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co. known as United Launch Alliance.

On its website, SpaceX says it has more than 70 upcoming missions on its launch manifest that represent more than $10 billion in contracts. In 2017, SpaceX completed 18 launches.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-spacex-spy-satellite-20180108-story.html