Joey Roulette
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – SpaceX on Wednesday launched the first batch of operational spy satellites it has built as part of a new U.S. intelligence network designed to significantly modernize the country’s space surveillance capabilities. The first deployment of several more is planned for this year.
The spy network was exposed in two Reuters reports earlier this year showing that SpaceX was building hundreds of satellites for the US National Reconnaissance Office, the spy agency, for a vast in-orbit system capable of quickly detecting ground targets almost anywhere in the world.
Northrop Grumman (NYSE:), a longtime space and defense contractor, is also involved in the project.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in Southern California at 4 a.m. ET on Wednesday, carrying into space what NRO said was “the first launch of NRO’s widespread systems enabling the rapid collection and rapid delivery of data “
“About half a dozen launches are planned for 2024 in support of the widespread NRO architecture, with additional launches expected through 2028,” the agency said, without specifying the number of satellites deployed.
Military and intelligence agencies around the world are increasingly relying on satellites orbiting the Earth to assist operations on Earth, a trend accelerated in part by falling costs of stationing assets in space and evolving threats to traditional methods of gathering information on the ground or in the air.
NRO’s satellite network also shows the extent to which the US government has come to rely on Elon Musk’s SpaceX for some of its most important missions. The company dominated the U.S. rocket launch market and became the world’s largest satellite operator with its Starlink network, a commercial system of thousands of broadband Internet satellites.