Falcon 9 Lifts Off From Vandenberg With the Classified USSF-627 Mission
SpaceX launched the USSF-627 mission for the U.S. Space Force at 8:36 p.m. on Wednesday from Space Launch Complex 4E. The first stage booster landed on a droneship in the Pacific on its seventh flight.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 lifted off from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base at 8:36 p.m. Pacific time on Wednesday, November 11, carrying the USSF-627 mission for the U.S. Space Force. SpaceX confirmed both the liftoff and the first stage landing after the flight.
The mission is classified, and SpaceX has not identified the payload or published a deployment result. The company ended its webcast after the booster came back, as it did on the USSF-432 flight six days earlier, and the public record of the mission is the launch and the recovery rather than a confirmed deployment.
The first stage booster, flying for the seventh time, landed on the droneship Of Course I Still Love You in the Pacific Ocean about eight and a half minutes after liftoff. The booster had previously flown the NROL-179 mission, two Space Development Agency missions and three Starlink missions, according to SpaceX.
USSF-627 is the second classified Space Force mission SpaceX has flown from Vandenberg in six days, after USSF-432 on November 6. The launch date had been rescheduled twice during the week, first from Monday to Tuesday and then to Wednesday, before the rocket lifted off on Wednesday night.
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