Falcon Heavy Flies Again

For the second time in just over a month a SpaceX Falcon Heavy will take to the skies over the Space Coast. NROL-97 will fly no earlier than 11:53 PM ET on October 1, 2026. This flight for the National Reconnaissance Office, unfortunately due to the classified nature of the launch, SpaceX will not have views from the second stage and the only thing we know right now is that it is launching to a high energy orbit. It will lift off from historic pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center on a northeast trajectory and head over the Atlantic Ocean the center core stage will be expended and the side boosters land at landing zones 1 and 2 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

This is notable because previously SpaceX had said there there would be no more landings at landing zone 1 and it was decommissioned in August of 2025 after the Crew 11 launch, and had said that they would be using landing zone 40 instead. Due to Crew 13 using landing zone 40 earlier in the day on October 1st it is not available. SpaceX was given permission to land one more time. This will be the fourth flight for side core B1072 previously flown on Goes-U, ViaSat-3 F3 (ViaSat-3 Asia-Pacific) and Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope  and the second flight for side core B1104 previously having flown on Nancy Grace Roman Telescope. NROL-97 will be the the quickest turn around for side core boosters by a signficant margin, the previous was 72 days in 2019 for side core boosters B1052 and B1052 in April and June of 2019. If it lifts off on time this will be 32 days between flights.

Given this is a night launch we will have the added beauty of a boost back burn and the interaction between the center core and the side boosters exhaust. The beauty that this creates is astonishing and it is breathtaking. We live in extraordinary times, we should be thankful of what we get to see if you are anywhere near the Space Coast look up and enjoy what we are able to see.