Watch SpaceX launch new batch of US spy satellites tonight

SpaceX will launch its first national security mission of the year tonight (Jan. 16), and you can watch the action live.

A Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to lift off from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base tonight during a 35-minute window that opens at 11:18 p.m. EST (8:18 p.m. local California time; 0418 GMT on Jan. 17), kicking off a mission for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).

You can watch it live via SpaceX's website or X account; coverage will begin about 10 minutes before launch.

The NRO, which operates the nation's fleet of spy satellites, calls tonight's mission NROL-105. It will be the 12th launch devoted to building out the NRO's "proliferated architecture," a new reconnaissance constellation that prioritizes flexibility, speed of deployment, cost efficiency and resilience.

"Having hundreds of small satellites on orbit is invaluable to the NRO's mission," NRO Director Chris Scolese said in the NROL-105 press kit, which you can find here.

"They will provide greater revisit rates, increased coverage, more timely delivery of information — and ultimately help us deliver more of what our customers need even faster," he added.

The proliferated architecture satellites are built by SpaceX and Northrop Grumman. All of them have reached orbit aboard Falcon 9 rockets launching from Vandenberg. The first such mission, NROL-146, lifted off in May 2024.

If all goes according to plan tonight, the Falcon 9's first stage will return to Earth safely, touching down at Vandenberg about 7.5 minutes after liftoff. It will be the second launch and landing for this particular booster, according to a SpaceX mission description.

We don't know how many satellites are going up on NROL-105, or where and when they're scheduled to be deployed; the mission description does not reveal this information.

And don't expect to get it during the webcast. SpaceX has ended its livestream shortly after booster landing on previous proliferated architecture launches at the NRO's request.

NROL-105 will be SpaceX's seventh mission of 2026. Four of the six launches to date have been devoted to building out the company's huge Starlink broadband megaconstellation.