Watch SpaceX launch secret US spy satellites to orbit from California today

SpaceX will launch a batch of spy satellites for the U.S. government this evening (May 11), and you can watch the action live. A Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to lift off from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base today, on a mission for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) called NROL-172. Launch will occur during a four-hour window that opens at 6:28 p.m. EDT (2228 GMT; 3:28 p.m. local California time). SpaceX will stream the event live via its website and X account , beginning about 10 minutes before liftoff. NROL-172 will be the 13th launch devoted to building out a new reconnaissance network that the NRO, which operates the United States' fleet of spy satellites, calls its "proliferated architecture." "To stay ahead of the competition and ensure it can continue to operate in a heightened threat environment, the NRO is modernizing its architecture in space and on the ground — delivering more capability faster with increased resilience," agency officials wrote in the NROL-172 press kit . "A greater number of satellites — large and small, government and commercial, in multiple orbits — will deliver an order of magnitude more signals and images than is available today," they added. The satellites for the new network are built by SpaceX and Northrop Grumman. We don't know exactly what they do, where they orbit or how many of them go up on each launch; the NRO has not released such information. …