USSF-366 lifted off Saturday night from Vandenberg aboard a Falcon 9, with SpaceX ending its webcast at payload separation under standard national security procedures.
Independent tracking of the booster’s drop zones matched earlier Starlink Group 15 flight profiles, pointing to Starshield satellites as the most likely classified payload.
Starshield uses the Starlink satellite bus but is tailored to Pentagon needs including Earth observation, secure communications and hosted payloads.
The launch follows a $178.5 million Space Development Agency task order in April and a broader $1.6 billion award in July tied to missile-tracking satellite launches.
Separately, the Starlink network reached 12,745 satellites launched, with 10,981 in orbit and 10,965 working after one more satellite dropped from the active fleet.