Liftoff of the USSF-124 mission is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. ET today (Feb. 14).

SpaceX will launch a mysterious national security mission today (Feb. 14), and you can watch the action live.

A Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to launch the classified USSF-124 mission for the U.S. Space Force today from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, during a four-hour window that opens at 5:30 p.m. EST (2230 GMT).

You can watch it live here at Space.com, courtesy of SpaceX, or directly via the company's account on X, beginning about 15 minutes before liftoff.

If all goes according to plan, the Falcon 9's first stage will come back to Earth for a vertical touchdown at Cape Canaveral about eight minutes after liftoff. The launch webcast will end at that point, presumably at the request of the Space Force.

It will be the seventh launch and landing for this particular booster, according to a SpaceX mission description.

We don't know much about USSF-124. The Space Force remained mum about it until this morning, when it emailed out a statement saying that the mission is ready to fly.

That statement revealed that USSF-124 will send six satellites to orbit — two for the Missile Defense Agency and four for the Space Development Agency — but did not describe the spacecraft or their envisioned orbital duties.

"With each national security launch, we continue to strengthen America’s capabilities and its deterrence in the face of growing threats while adding stability to a very dynamic world," Col. Jim Horne, senior materiel leader for Space System Command's Launch Execution Delta, said in the emailed statement. "It's what we do in the Space Force, and we take that charge seriously."

USSF-124 could be part of a very busy stretch in spaceflight. At 7:30 p.m. EST tonight (0030 GMT on Feb. 15), for example, SpaceX plans to launch 22 of its Starlink internet satellites to orbit from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

Then, at 10:25 p.m. EST tonight (0325 GMT on Feb. 15), Russia will send the robotic Progress 87 freighter toward the International Space Station from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan atop a Soyuz rocket.

And SpaceX plans to launch IM-1, a private moon-landing mission, on Feb. 15 at 1:05 a.m. EST (0605 GMT) from NASA's Kennedy Space Center, which is next door to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

Source:
courtesy of SPACE

by Mike Wall

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