{"id":5442,"date":"2026-07-29T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rdgundem.com\/spacex-launching-secret-us-spy-satellite-early-on-july-30-watch-it-live\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T17:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T17:00:00","slug":"spacex-launching-secret-us-spy-satellite-early-on-july-30-watch-it-live","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rdgundem.com\/en\/spacex-launching-secret-us-spy-satellite-early-on-july-30-watch-it-live\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX launching secret US spy satellite early on July 30: Watch it live"},"content":{"rendered":"
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SpaceX plans to launch a secret reconnaissance mission for the U.S. government early on Thursday morning (July 30), and you can watch the action live.<\/p>\n

A Falcon 9<\/u><\/a> rocket is scheduled to launch from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station<\/u><\/a> on Thursday, kicking off a mission for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) called NROL-95.<\/p>\n

The 44-minute launch window opens at 2:37 a.m. EDT (0637 GMT). SpaceX has said it’s targeting a time in the latter half of that span \u2014 3:09 a.m. EDT (0709 GMT). You can watch live via SpaceX<\/u><\/a> beginning about 10 minutes before liftoff.<\/p>\n

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The patch for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office’s NROL-95 mission. <\/span>(Image credit: NRO)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We know very little about NROL-95; the NRO, which operates the country’s fleet of spy satellites<\/u><\/a>, has provided no details about the payload or its activities.<\/p>\n

The agency has revealed the NROL-95 mission patch. It depicts a snarling ferret with a nighttime sky in the background and the words “We are the Champions” on the emblem’s lower border.<\/p>\n

“The ferret, a clever creature, embodies agility and resilience \u2014 key traits for exploration. Its confident grin and bright eyes reflect a spirit of victory in a realm where determination meets adventure,” NRO officials said in an NROL-95 mission description<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n

“The bold phrase ‘We are the Champions’ encapsulates the camaraderie and pride shared among those on this purposeful mission,” they added.<\/p>\n

NROL-95 will be the fourth NRO launch of 2026. The other three \u2014 NROL-105<\/u><\/a> in January, NROL-172 in May and NROL-179 in June \u2014 also flew aboard Falcon 9s, but from Vandenberg Space Force Base<\/u><\/a> in California.<\/p>\n

Those three other missions were devoted to building out the NRO’s “proliferated architecture” constellation, which will consist of hundreds of relatively small, cost-efficient reconnaissance satellites in Earth orbit.<\/p>\n

If all goes to plan on Thursday, the Falcon 9 will come back to Earth for a landing at Cape Canaveral about 8.5 minutes after liftoff. It will be the seventh mission for this particular booster, according to a SpaceX mission description<\/u><\/a>. <\/p>\n

If past SpaceX<\/u><\/a> NRO launches are any guide, the company will cut off the livestream shortly thereafter, at the request of the agency.<\/p>\n<\/article>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SpaceX plans to launch a secret reconnaissance mission for the U.S. government early on Thursday morning (July 30), and you can watch the action live. A Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to launch from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Thursday, kicking off a mission for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) called NROL-95. …<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5443,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gundem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rdgundem.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rdgundem.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rdgundem.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rdgundem.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rdgundem.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rdgundem.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5442\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rdgundem.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rdgundem.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rdgundem.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rdgundem.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}