Live coverage: SpaceX to launch unspecified satellite on a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral

SpaceX is preparing to launch a Falcon 9 rocket with a mysterious payload for a customer avoiding pre-launch publicity.

The mission, referred to by SpaceX as ‘Commercial GTO-1,’ is scheduled to launch at the beginning of a 3.5-hour-long window at 1:04 a.m. EDT (0504 UTC) on Sunday, July 13.

Spaceflight Now will have live coverage beginning about an hour prior to liftoff.

SpaceX will use the Falcon 9 booster with the first stage tail number B1083, which will fly for a 13th time. Its previous missions included NASA’s Crew-8, Polaris Dawn and CRS-31.

Roughly 8.5 minutes after liftoff, B1083 will target a landing on SpaceX’s droneship, ‘Just Read the Instructions.’ If successful, this will be the 128th touchdown for this vessel and the 474th booster landing to date.

Mystery payload, mystery customer

The mission is concealed by a veil of secrecy not often applied by commercial customers of SpaceX. Publicly available marine and air warnings confirm that this satellite is heading into a geostationary transfer orbit.

According to an article by Walla! Communications Ltd., a subsidiary of The Jerusalem Post based in Tel Aviv, Israel, and some U.S.-based publications, the satellite is Dror 1, a satellite developed by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI).

The company announced the development of the satellite in January 2020 and said it was designed to operate for 15 years. IAI said the satellite would be developed by its Systems, Missile and Space Group.

“We are excited to move forward with Dror 1, the most advanced communication satellite ever built in Israel,” said Boaz Levy, IAI’s executive vice president and general manager of the SMS Group. “It will comprise numerous state-of-the-art technologies created here in Israel and contain highly-advanced digital capabilities.

The Dror 1 satellite is designed to operate in geostationary Earth orbit, about 36,000 km in altitude. IAI said its January 2020 press release that the satellite is part of a 2018 Israeli strategy to establish an on orbit communications system designed for its national interests.

“This government decision stems from the understanding that the capability for communication independence is of critical national importance, as well as to enable the preservation of the knowledge and expertise that has been accumulated by Israel over the past years,” IAI wrote.

According to a 2020 writeup on the satellite in the Jewish News Syndicate (JNS), a news agency focused on topics concerning Israel and other Jewish people around the world, the four-ton satellite features a number of components from Israel and is designed to be modular in capability, like a smartphone.

“This is a fully digital satellite that can upload applications. It can broadcast data from one antenna and receive from another,” said Shlomi Sudri, general manager of IAI’s Space Division, told JNS.

The satellite appears to be part of IAI’s AMOS communications satellite series. These are multi-band satellite buses that are in the 3-6 ton class.

The last AMOS payload built by IAI to be placed atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, AMOS 6, was destroyed when an explosion occurred in the rocket’s upper stage on Sept. 1, 2016 prior to a planned static test fire.

While rare, the Commercial GTO-1 mission isn’t the first time SpaceX has been asked by a customer to avoid disclosing details publicly. Launches for the National Reconnaissance Office and the U.S. Space Force are often kept under wraps, because of national security reasons.

In November 2024, SpaceX launched a mission simply referred to as TD7. Regulatory filings called the payload ‘Optus-X,’ which was connected to a company called Optus, a company connected to SingTel Australia Investment Ltd.