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).

SpaceX's Starship will fly for the seventh time ever early next week, if all goes according to plan. SpaceX announced today (Jan. 8) that it's targeting Monday (Jan. 13) for Flight 7 of Starship, the 400-foot-tall (122 meters), fully reusable megarocket designed to help humanity settle the moon and Mars.

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

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 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.

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 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.

Elon Musk wants SpaceX to conduct 25 Starship test flights in 2025 after just five launches this year, but he'll need FAA approval.