Falcon 9 USSF-432 launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base, Digi Mart USA News (California): SpaceX launched another batch of satellites for a clandestine U.S. Space Force program on a Falcon 9 rocket from California on Friday afternoon.
Liftoff from pad 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base occurred at 4:48 p.m. PST (7:48 p.m.
EST / 0048 UTC). The rocket took a south-easterly trajectory on departure from the central California coast.
The flight was originally scheduled for Nov. 1 but was delayed repeatedly, first due to delays of the Starlink 15-18 launch, and then for reasons that were not disclosed.
The mission is designated USSF-432 but is also identified as R-4 in public documents. This series of “R” missions began Aug. 16 with USSF-366.
More launches in the sequence followed with USSF-153 (R-2) on Sept. 10 and USSF-385 (R-3) on Sept. 26.
Each R launch has placed 23 satellites in orbit, according to orbital catalog entries. They are thought to be based on SpaceX’s Starshield platform, the government version of the Starlink satellite.
According to Jonathan McDowell, a respected tracker of space launches, the R satellites are part of the U.S. Space Force’s Space Based Sensing and Targeting program.
Officially, the Space Force has declined to provide any information about the missions. Neither SpaceX nor the Space Force have confirmed a successful satellite deployment on the previous flights.
The Falcon 9 first stage booster, B1095, is making its eighth flight and landed on the drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You,” stationed in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja California, Mexico. The booster’s previous flights all took place from the East Coast at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and Kennedy Space Center.
It made a cross-country transfer after launching the GPS 3-8 mission in April.
The bulk of recent Falcon 9 launches have taken place from Vandenberg as SpaceX focuses its attention on launching the first Starship from Florida.
