SpaceX Rocket Deploys Satellites for DOD Space Test Program

A SpaceX rideshare mission has launched dozens of payloads into a sun-synchronous orbit, including three Blue Canyon Technologies-built research and development satellites for the Department of Defense’s Space Test Program.

The deployment of two Modular Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance imaging cubesats and the XVI military communications spacecraft marked STP’s 306th mission, dubbed STP-CR2301, designed to demonstrate new capabilities and space access solutions.

SpaceX’s Transporter-8 rideshare mission lifted off on board a Falcon 9 rocket on Monday from Space Launch Complex-4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, Space Systems Command said.

According to Lt. Col. Jonathan Shea, SSC’s director of STP, validating new technologies is crucial to the U.S. Space Force’s future payload deployments.

Besides the STP satellites, Transporter-8 also launched four Blackjack satellites for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Starfish Space’s Otter Pup satellite servicing spacecraft prototype and Satellite Vu’s HotSat-1 satellite for a demonstration of thermal imaging technologies.