Falcon Goes 3 for 3 with Rapid Response GPS III-9 Launch
At 11:53 PM Eastern Time on Tuesday night, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket leapt from Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, carrying another GPS block III spacecraft into orbit. The spacecraft, SV09, is the ninth out of ten next-generation GPS satellites intended to modernize the system’s capabilities for both government and civilian use. Furthermore, the mission is the third to be launched under a new, rapid-response paradigm, pushing the industry’s ability to launch critical assets with short notice. To this end, SV09 was pulled off of a planned launch on United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket, which has a substantial backlog to clear following a rocky start to its career.
In fact, all three of the recent rapid-response GPS launches, consisting of satellites SV07, SV08, and SV09, were once planned to be launched by Vulcan. The first such exercise occurred in the latter half of 2024, when the Space Force opted to condense their usual launch planning campaign from 24 months to five, culminating in the launch of SV07 on a Falcon 9 in December of that year. At the time, USSF Col. Jim Horne explicitly cited Vulcan delays as a rationale for the Space Force’s desire to demonstrate this flexibility. In April of 2025, the Space Force announced that SV08 had also been moved to Falcon 9, resulting in a launch the following May. Both of those missions achieved a three-month processing campaign for the spacecraft; SV09’s campaign was completed in two. To preserve contract terms between USSF and ULA, each of these trades will be compensated by giving future GPS launches to Vulcan; at least two are known to have been moved off of Falcon Heavy.
Vulcan, soon to be ULA’s only launch vehicle, has not had a smooth path to operational readiness. The rocket has flown just three times so far; early delays were attributed to the readiness of Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser, originally intended to be Vulcan’s first payload, but a solid rocket booster nozzle failure on Vulcan’s second certification flight caused additional headache for the program. In 2025, Vulcan flew just once, but finally began its operational phase with a national security payload. As its predecessor, Atlas V, rapidly approaches the end of its manifest, ULA is working hard to begin chipping away at Vulcan’s backlog, starting with USSF-87, which is currently set to launch on February 12th. As a sign of the times, ULA’s former CEO Tory Bruno recently left the company for Blue Origin, citing his view that the transition to Vulcan was complete.
The SV09 spacecraft now in orbit is named for NASA astronaut and USAF Col. Ellison Onizuka, who was killed in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster on January 28, 1986, 40 years ago.
