{"id":22790,"date":"2018-01-09T18:10:55","date_gmt":"2018-01-09T18:10:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2018\/01\/09\/spacex-launched-a-spy-satellite-sunday-it-may-have-failed-what-happens-now\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T17:58:43","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T17:58:43","slug":"spacex-launched-a-spy-satellite-sunday-it-may-have-failed-what-happens-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/space\/2018\/01\/09\/spacex-launched-a-spy-satellite-sunday-it-may-have-failed-what-happens-now\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX launched a spy satellite Sunday. It may have failed. What happens now?"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-smg-jwplayer-video\"><atype-video-jwplayer nostick=\"true\" playlisturl=\"https:\/\/cdn.jwplayer.com\/v2\/playlists\/fCzRqMW8?tags=a867f52d-eaff-4d91-90f2-8784efa1e0da\" poster=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/video-poster-a867f52d-eaff-4d91-90f2-8784efa1e0da.jpg\" aspectratio=\"16 \/ 9\" mute autostart=\"false\"><\/atype-video-jwplayer><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The initial stages of the mission seemed to go as planned, but now it appears there may have been a serious problem with Zuma&#8217;s deployment.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">WASHINGTON \u2013 SpaceX is denying it played any part in the apparent failure of an expensive, mysterious government satellite system that launched Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The so-called Zuma satellite lifted off aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Sunday night. Little is known about Zuma, including the government agency who purchased the satellite or its mission, although it commonly has been referred to as a \u201cspy satellite\u201d in reports. The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.floridatoday.com\/story\/tech\/science\/space\/2018\/01\/07\/spacex-kicks-off-2018-launch-mysterious-zuma-mission-falcon-landing\/1008269001\/\" title=\"\" class=\"\">newspaper Florida Today<\/a> reported that amateur satellite trackers who specialize in classified missions have guessed that Zuma would test new sensors for watching close approaches between spacecraft.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However, since the launch, the mission has led to a series of questions with few answers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On Monday evening, Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal reported that Zuma failed to activate correctly, and that rather than orbiting the planet, the system was crashing back to earth. An industry official familiar with the mission told C4ISRNET the satellite likely cost more than $3 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then Tuesday, SpaceX CEO Gwynne Shotwell issued a statement that, \u201cafter review of all data to date, Falcon 9 did everything correctly on Sunday night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIf we or others find otherwise based on further review, we will report it immediately. Information published that is contrary to this statement is categorically false,\u201d the statement continued. \u201cDue to the classified nature of the payload, no further comment is possible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Members of the Congressional defense and intelligence committees reportedly were briefed on the issue late Monday, but remained tight lipped. Sen. Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, told C4ISRNET he would like to talk about the Zuma situation but was not able to at this point.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cSpace is a risky business,\u201d said Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., the chairman of the House Armed Services\u2019 strategic forces subcommittee. In that position, he said he was, \u201ccommitted to providing rigorous oversight that accounts for that risk and ensures that we can meet all of our national security space requirements as the Air Force looks to competitively procure space launch services in the future.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment on the mission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Zuma system was built by Northrop Grumman. In a statement, a company spokesman said \u201cThis is a classified mission. We cannot comment on classified missions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">SpaceX spent years fighting with the U.S. Air Force and Congress for the proper certification to carry military and intelligence payloads. Critics argued that the company was not mature enough to risk the sensitive military equipment that often cost billions of dollars, take years to develop and fill needed national security missions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><i>Joe Gould of Defense News contributed to this report from Washington. <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SpaceX is denying it played any part in the apparent failure of an expensive, mysterious government satellite system that launched Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":48458,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":23,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3378],"class_list":["post-22790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-space"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"BDMB4M7W65GJBGDZEHJVJKA4CM","arc_canonical_url":"\/intel-geoint\/2018\/01\/09\/spacex-launched-a-spy-satellite-sunday-it-may-have-failed-what-happens-now\/","remove_feature_photo":true,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.0 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>SpaceX launched a spy satellite Sunday. 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What happens now?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/#website","url":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/","name":"Defense News","description":"Covering the politics, business and technology of defense | Defense News","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/#organization","name":"Defense News","url":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/defensenews-logo-white.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/defensenews-logo-white.png","caption":"Defense News"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/#\/schema\/person\/cc76c831bb37a926738c8391fca7a3b1","name":"migration","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9e8d47be443ce94ce7fc357677b5f9c70235bb1f59e7267a102a74af58c04f59?s=96&d=mm&r=gcf4cb6ee0ec29e49e7a963234e4340ec","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9e8d47be443ce94ce7fc357677b5f9c70235bb1f59e7267a102a74af58c04f59?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9e8d47be443ce94ce7fc357677b5f9c70235bb1f59e7267a102a74af58c04f59?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"migration"},"url":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/author\/migration\/"}]}},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"Defense News","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews","push-errors":false,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/39557026242_9d55861de9_k.jpg.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22790"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22791,"href":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22790\/revisions\/22791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22790"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=22790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}