Emre Kelly
Sonic booms that reverberated across the Space Coast early Saturday signaled a Falcon 9 rocket's gentle touchdown in Cape Canaveral, a fitting end to a bustling launch year for Florida.
Eight-and-a-half minutes before its four legs made contact with Landing Zone 1, the SpaceX booster vaulted a secretive national defense satellite from just nine miles away at Kennedy Space Center, then separated from the upper stage. Saturday's 9 a.m. launch marked the fifth flight for the 162-foot first stage.
A little over two minutes after the pad 39A liftoff, SpaceX stopped reporting on the status of the National Reconnaissance Office payload, labeled NROL-108, to preserve its secrets. Its mission is largely unconfirmed aside from the fact that the NRO manages the nation's fleet of intelligence satellites, which can intercept signals and capture high-resolution imagery of Earth's surface.
That Falcon 9 had enough fuel left over to flip around fly back to the Cape – as opposed to an Atlantic Ocean-based drone ship landing – indicates the payload likely wasn't among the heaviest or most complicated SpaceX has handled.
The NRO's mission patch, meanwhile, showed a fanged gorilla beating its chest next to text that read, "Peace Through Strength."
"Gorillas are peaceful animals but can be fierce when necessary," the NRO said in a release. "Like the gorilla, our NROL-108 mission is constantly vigilant and ready to defend its own."
Saturday's flight was the 31st of the year for the Space Coast, a cadence not seen in decades and easily the busiest from a commercial standpoint. Much of that was driven by SpaceX's Starlink internet launches, of which there were 14 this year.
Looking forward to 2021, SpaceX is next with a mix of three January missions ranging from Starlink to a Turkish communications satellite. No firm dates have been established.
For the latest, visit floridatoday.com/launchschedule.
Contact Emre Kelly at aekelly@floridatoday.com or 321-242-3715. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at @EmreKelly. Support space journalism by subscribing at floridatoday.com/specialoffer/.