SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket from California on Friday 6 November carrying a classified mission for the United States Space Force, the latest flight of a secretive satellite programme officials will not describe.

Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base took place at 4.48pm Pacific time. The mission, designated USSF-432, flew on a south-easterly path from the California coast, according to Spaceflight Now.

The first-stage booster, B1095, was making its eighth flight, having previously launched the GPS III-8 mission and six Starlink missions. After stage separation, it landed on the droneship Of Course I Still Love You in the Pacific Ocean about eight and a half minutes after liftoff.

Fourth flight in a quiet series

USSF-432 is also identified as R-4 in public documents, the fourth mission in a series that began with USSF-366 in mid-August, followed by USSF-153 and USSF-385 in September. Each earlier flight placed 23 satellites in orbit, according to orbital catalogue entries.

Independent analysts believe the satellites are based on SpaceX's Starshield platform, the government version of Starlink. Jonathan McDowell, a respected launch tracker, has linked the series to the Space Force's Space Based Sensing and Targeting programme. Neither SpaceX nor the Space Force has confirmed the payload, and SpaceX ended its webcast after the booster landing without confirming deployment, standard practice for a classified mission.

A record year keeps growing

The flight was the 74th launch supported from Vandenberg in 2026, the Space Force said, extending a record year at the spaceport. The base passed its 2025 annual total on 27 October, when a Falcon 9 Starlink launch became the 72nd of the year. The mission had been scheduled for 1 November but was delayed several times, first by Starlink 15-18 delays, then for undisclosed reasons.