The Falcon 9 rocket, part of the US Space Force’s USSF-124 mission, was launched into orbit along with a group of new American hypersonic launch tracking satellites. This was announced by the SpaceX launch vehicle development company on Thursday. The launch took place at 5:30 pm EST on Wednesday from the launch complex at the US Space Force base in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Earlier, the US Department of Defense announced plans to launch satellites designed to track hypersonic weapons into Earth orbit. It was planned to place two satellites of the HBTSS (Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor) hypersonic and ballistic missile tracking system and four more military reconnaissance vehicles into Earth orbit.

HBTSS satellites will allow detection of hypersonic and ballistic missiles, as well as other “possible targets,” earlier than ground-based detection vehicles. Over the next few weeks, experts are expected to carry out a series of tests and checks to verify that the devices are working properly. Two years were allocated for further testing of orbiting satellites.

The development of satellites for HBTSS is carried out by American military-industrial companies L3Harris Technologies and Northrop Grumman. In January 2021, they received $122 million and $155 million, respectively, from the Pentagon for this purpose. L3Harris Technologies completed development of the project in December 2021 and began building a sample of the new satellite. Northrop Grumman has done this before.