Washington May 1 (IANS) SpaceX launched a spy satellite for the US Department of Defence on Monday officials said.
The two-stage Falcon 9 rocket carrying the classified NROL-76 satellite lifted off at 7.15 a.m. from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida the same pad that supported numerous Apollo and space shuttle launches the company s live webcast showed. About 10 minutes later the rocket s first stage landed at SpaceX s Landing Zone 1 just south of the launch site at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Xinhua news agency reported. SpaceX previously landed a first stage booster at Landing Zone 1 three times. It also successfully recovered Falcon 9 first stages from six missions at sea using the company s drone ships. Few details have been released about NROL-76 a satellite designed built and operated by the National Reconnaissance Office under the Department of Defence. This launch marks the 15-year-old company s first mission for the Pentagon. For years the market for launching US military payloads was dominated by the United Launch Alliance a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing. But SpaceX broke the monopoly in 2015 when the US Air Force certified its Falcon 9 rocket to launch national security space missions. Since then the California-based company has also won two contracts to launch Global Positioning System satellites for the US Air Force. --IANS ksk/vt
SpaceX launches spy satellite for US
