SpaceX will launch a mysterious national security mission today (Feb. 14), and you can watch the action live.
A Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to launch the USSF-124 mission for the U.S. Space Force today at 5:30 p.m. EST (2230 GMT) from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
SpaceX will stream the launch live via its account on X, beginning about 15 minutes before liftoff. The webcast may cut off relatively early, as is common for classified missions.
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If all goes according to plan, the Falcon 9’s first stage will come back to Earth for a vertical touchdown at Cape Canaveral about eight minutes after liftoff. It will be the seventh launch and landing for this particular booster, according to a SpaceX mission description.
The Space Force has not revealed much information about USSF-124. The SpaceX mission description is similarly taciturn, giving little detail aside from the fact that the target destination is low Earth orbit.
According to NextSpaceflight.com, however, two satellites are going up on USSF-124, one of them built by L3Harris and the other by Northrop Grumman.
USSF-124 could be part of a very busy stretch in spaceflight. At 7:30 p.m. EST tonight (0030 GMT on Feb. 15), for example, SpaceX plans to launch 22 of its Starlink internet satellites to orbit from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
Then, at 10:25 p.m. EST tonight (0325 GMT on Feb. 15), Russia will send the robotic Progress 87 freighter toward the International Space Station from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan atop a Soyuz rocket.
And SpaceX plans to launch IM-1, a private moon-landing mission, on Feb. 15 at 1:05 a.m. EST (0605 GMT) from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, which is next door to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.