Live coverage: Falcon 9 disintegrates after launch

The NROL-192 mission will the 10th to date supporting the National Reconnaissance Office’s (NRO) proliferated architecture satellite constellation. Liftoff from pad 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base was at 5:25 a.m. PDT (8:25 a.m. EDT, 1225 UTC) on Saturday April 12, 2025.

On the eve of the Iridium’s fifth launch with SpaceX, the mobile telecom satellite operator’s chief executive says he no longer waits for SpaceX’s rockets to be ready. Instead, Iridium’s satellite team is racing to keep pace churning spacecraft off their assembly line.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket ignited its nine Merlin main engines for several seconds Thursday at launch pad 39A in Florida, moving the previously-flown booster closer to a scheduled blastoff Monday with a Bulgarian communications satellite.