SpaceX Starshield

Under the Starshield brand, SpaceX is marketing a derivative of its Starlink satellite bus for military applications. Starshield was publicly unveiled in late 2022. According to SpaceX, Starshield satellites are suited for earth observation and communication purposes, and can accommodate hosted custom payloads.

It is uncertain, when the first defense-related Starshield launches occurred. But two launches in January and June 2022 each carried four classified satellites for an unidentified "U.S. government agency", and these are generally assumed to be early Starshield models.

Image: SpeceX

Starshield (Generic concept image)

The most important customer for Starshield is the National Reconnaissance Office. At the time of this writing, the NRO has launched at least 10 batches, for a total of 201 satellites. They are part of an ongoing NRO effort to build its so-called "Proliferated Architecture" constellation, which is planned to encompass hundreds of satellites in low-earth orbit. Specific capabilities are classified, but the general purpose is space-based resilient real-time ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance), including SIGINT (Signal Intelligence), IMINT (Image Intelligence) and GMTI (Ground Moving Target Indication).

One additional NRO launch, NROL-126, is also thought to have carried Starshield satellites, but probably with a different mission/payload than the other NRO Starshields.

Three other space launches (2024-050, 2025-014 and 2025-165) each carried two classified U.S. government payloads, which are assumed to be Starshield satellites. Their purpose, and which agency owns them, is unknown.

Starshield Launch List

• Name: Unclassified name of the satellite. Since June 1984, U.S. military satellites get a sequential "USA" number. "NROL" stands for National Reconnaissance Office Launch, a number assigned by the NRO to its satellite launches since 1996.
• COSPAR ID: International designation of the satellite ("I" and "O" suffix letters are not used)

Starshield launches (NRO)

Starshield launches (Unknown U.S. government agencies)

Main Sources

[1] SpaceX StarShield Website
[2] Wikipedia: SpaceX Starshield
[3] Gunter Krebs: Gunter's Space Page (for launch lists)

Back to Directory of U.S. Military Rockets and Missiles, Appendix 3

---

Last Updated: 24 September 2025