Sonic boom possible today as SpaceX lines up national security launch from Cape Canaveral

Richard Tribou, Orlando Sentinel on Dec 9, 2025

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SpaceX is set to complete its second launch in less than 24 hours on the Space Coast with a national security mission lines up for Tuesday afternoon.

A Falcon 9 rocket is set to lift off on the NROL-77 mission with a classified satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 2:16 p.m. with backup Dec. 10 at 2:02 p.m.

This will be the fourth launch of the first-stage booster that will aim for a recovery at Canaveral’s Landing Zone 2, which means Central Florida could experience one or more sonic booms.

This is the 3rd national security launch for SpaceX in 2025. The mission patch is a flying squirrel, “a symbol of hard work and endurance — always active gathering foundational knowledge from the space domain for the nation and its allies.”

NROL-77 was awarded to SpaceX during the NSSL Phase 2 contract task orders in fiscal 2024, the final year of task orders from the Phase 2’s 2000-2024 order years.

The mission comes one day after SpaceX sent up a Starlink mission from Kennedy Space Center using its fleet-leading first-stage booster making its 32nd trip to space.

That Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-92 mission lifted off from KSC’s Launch Pad 39-A at 5:26 p.m.

The booster made a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions stationed in the Atlantic.

It also included another 29 of the company’s internet satellites, among which was the 3,000th sent up in 2025 alone from all launch sites by SpaceX.

The company has sent up more than 10,000 of the satellites since the first operational mission in 2019, and more than 9,000 remain in orbit.

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