The National Reconnaissance Office launched new spy satellites into lower Earth orbit late Thursday, adding to the growing constellation of such U.S.-based intelligence-gathering satellites around the world.

SpaceX launched another batch of U.S. spy satellites from California's central coast tonight (Jan. 9). A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base tonight at 10:53 p.m. EST (7:53 p.m. local California time; 0353 GMT on Jan. 10) on the NROL-153 mission for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).

Starship is scheduled to launch from Starbase on Monday (Jan. 13) at 5:00 p.m. EST (2200 GMT). It will be the seventh test flight for the giant rocket, which SpaceX is developing to help humanity settle Mars and achieve a variety of other exploration feats.

The launch marks the seventh deployment in the NRO’s new “proliferated architecture” strategy, which emphasizes smaller, distributed satellite networks

SpaceX is also flying rudimentary catch fittings on Starship to test their thermal performance on reentry. The ship will fly a more demanding trajectory during descent to probe the structural limits of the redesigned flaps at the point of maximum entry dynamic pressure, according to SpaceX.

Rough seas caused Blue Origin to hold off a planned early Friday launch attempt with is debut of New Glenn now targeting early Sunday instead. SpaceX, though, still has plans to launch later

SpaceX’s most ambitious Starship flight yet will see reused hardware, the deployment of 10 fake satellites and another attempt to catch the booster with “chopsticks”

The direct-to-cell Starlink system in Southern California will deliver wireless emergency alerts and power SMS texting to 911 services.

On Friday, a Falcon 9 rocket carrying 21 Starlink satellites is set to take off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

The launch window will open at 4 p.m. local time (5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. PT). A live webcast of the Starship’s seventh flight test will begin about 35 minutes before liftoff. You can watch the full coverage on SpaceX’s website or via its X account.

On the last day of 2024, Eutelsat's OneWeb satellite broadband service that covers much of Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas was hit with a 48-hour power outage — and, oddly enough, it's because of the leap year.