Posted: Sat, Aug 8 5:15 PM ET (2115 GMT)
SpaceX and United Launch Alliance have won contracts potentially worth billions of dollars to launch national security satellites for much of the coming decade. The Pentagon announced Friday that the two companies won National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase 2 contracts, covering launches of military and intelligence satellites from fiscal year 2022 through 2027. The Air Force immediately assigned two launches to ULA and one to SpaceX for missions in 2022. SpaceX will use its existing Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, while ULA will use its Vulcan Centaur rocket in development. The two companies beat out Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman, which offered their New Glenn and OmegA rockets in development.

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•  SpaceNews article
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•  SpacePolicyOnline.com article
•  US Space Force press release

Posted: Sat, Aug 8 5:09 PM ET (2109 GMT)
SpaceX launched another set of Starlink satellites, and two BlackSky imaging satellites, early Friday. The Falcon 9 lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center at 1:12 am EDT (0512 GMT) and deployed the two BlackSky satellites a little more than an hour after liftoff, followed by 57 Starlink satellites a half-hour later. The rocket's first stage, making its fifth flight, landed on a droneship successfully, but SpaceX was unable to catch the two payload fairing halves. The launch had been delayed several times since late June, which SpaceX said was caused by weather and payload issues, and not problems with the rocket itself.

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•  SpaceNews article
•  Space.com article
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•  GeekWire article
•  Florida Today article

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