{"id":9541,"date":"2026-06-06T22:35:38","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T14:35:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/spacex-launches-2-starshield-satellites-during-saturday-night-starlink-mission\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T22:35:38","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T14:35:38","slug":"spacex-launches-2-starshield-satellites-during-saturday-night-starlink-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/spacex-launches-2-starshield-satellites-during-saturday-night-starlink-mission\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX launches 2 Starshield satellites during Saturday night Starlink mission"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_73593\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-73593\" style=\"width: 678px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-73593\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/20260606_Starshield.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"678\" height=\"381\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/20260606_Starshield.jpeg 678w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/20260606_Starshield-300x169.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 678px) 100vw, 678px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-73593\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A partial view of a SpaceX Starshield satellite in low Earth orbit. Image: SpaceX<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><em><strong>Update June 7, 12:50 a.m. EDT (0450 UTC): SpaceX landed the booster on the drone ship.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>SpaceX launched a combination of 21 Starlink and two Starshield satellites on Saturday night from Vandenberg Space Force Base.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Starshield is an alternate version of the Starlink satellite architecture the government. SpaceX hasn\u2019t announced which U.S. government agency ordered these two satellites or if they are for a foreign government.<\/p>\n<p>Liftoff of the Falcon 9 rocket on the Starlink 17-43 mission from Space Launch Complex 4 East happened at 9:24:45 p.m. PDT on Saturday, June 6 (12:24:45 a.m. EDT \/ 0424:45 UTC on Sunday, June 7).<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/GK5XWAyyECU?si=Y5RW-WE6Ytjqo_VV\" width=\"678\" height=\"381\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>SpaceX flew the mission using the Falcon 9 first stage booster with the tail number B1097. This was its tenth flight after launching NROL-172, the Twilight rideshare, and seven batches of Starlink satellites.<\/p>\n<p>A little more than eight minutes after liftoff, B1097 landed on the drone ship, \u2018Of Course I Still Love You.\u2019 This was the 201st landing on this vessel and the 620th booster landing to date.<\/p>\n<p>While never publicly declared by the National Reconnaissance Office, the 13 launches supporting its \u201cmulti-phenomenology proliferated architecture\u201d satellite constellation are believed to consist of Starshield satellites. In April 2024, Reuters reported that Northrop Grumman \u201cis providing sensors for some of the SpaceX satellites.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In 2025, SpaceX launched two missions, Starlink 13-1 and Starlink 13-4, which reportedly included two Starshield satellites each as well, similar to the upcoming Starlink 17-43 mission. Those satellites, logged by the U.S. Space Force as USA 485, 486, 549, and 550, have also not been publicly connected to a specific part of the U.S. government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A partial view of a SpaceX Starshield satellite in low Earth orbit. Image: SpaceX Update June 7, 12:50 a.m. EDT (0450 UTC): SpaceX landed the booster on the drone ship. SpaceX launched a combination of 21 Starlink and two Starshield satellites on Saturday night from Vandenberg Space Force Base.&nbsp; Starshield is an alternate version of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[715,479,703,682,683,316,440,716],"class_list":["post-9541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-b1097","tag-falcon-9","tag-ocisly","tag-slc-4e","tag-sld-30","tag-spacex","tag-starlink","tag-starlink-17-43"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9541"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9541\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}