SpaceX Quietly Schedules Mysterious Mission

In what has already been a busy year for SpaceX, the commercial launch provider is adding one more mission to its jammed-packed end-of-year schedule.  A mysterious mission codenamed “Zuma” will launch no earlier than 10 November 2017 from LC-39A at the Kennedy Space Center. 

Image from SpaceX

It’s not often that one can point to a last-minute (from the public side) addition of a mission to a launch manifest – let alone one that manages to stay secret until 30 days before the opening of its launch campaign.

With such secrecy, the customer candidate for Zuma would normally be the U.S. government/military (i.e.: the National Reconnaissance Office or the Air Force); however, there is industry speculation claiming this is a “black commercial” mission.

What is known is that Zuma will use Falcon 9 core B1043 – a brand new core that was originally (as understood by NASASpaceflight.com) intended for the CRS-13/Dragon mission. Northrop Grumman is the payload provider for Zuma through a commercial launch contract with SpaceX for a LEO satellite with a mission type labeled as “government” and a needed launch date range of 1-30 November 2017.

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References

Gebhardt, C. (2017). SpaceX adds mystery “Zuma” mission, Iridium-4 aims for Vandenberg landing | NASASpaceFlight.com. [online] Nasaspaceflight.com. Available at: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2017/10/spacex-zuma-iridium-4-aims-vandenberg-landing/ [Accessed 18 Oct. 2017].