SpaceX is preparing for a Falcon 9 launch carrying an undisclosed payload for a commercial client that has opted to forgo pre-launch publicity.
Designated ‘Commercial GTO-1,’ the mission is scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Sunday, July 13. The 3.5-hour launch window opens at 1:04 a.m. EDT (0504 UTC).
The mission will utilize the Falcon 9 first-stage booster B1083 for its 13th flight. This booster has previously supported notable missions including NASA’s Crew-8, Polaris Dawn, and CRS-31. Following stage separation, approximately 8.5 minutes after liftoff, the booster will attempt a landing on the SpaceX droneship, ‘Just Read the Instructions.’ A successful recovery would mark the 128th landing for this vessel and the 474th overall booster landing for the company.
The payload is cloaked in a level of secrecy uncommon for commercial missions. Publicly available aviation and maritime hazard warnings confirm the satellite is targeting a geostationary transfer orbit (GTO), but the client and payload remain officially unidentified.
However, reports from Israeli and U.S. publications, including Walla! Communications Ltd., suggest the satellite is Dror 1, developed by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI). IAI announced the project in January 2020, stating the communications satellite was designed for a 15-year lifespan and would be built 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, then IAI’s executive vice president and general manager of the SMS Group, in the 2020 announcement. “It will comprise numerous state-of-the-art technologies created here in Israel and contain highly-advanced digital capabilities.”
The Dror 1 satellite is part of a 2018 Israeli government strategy to ensure national communications independence. IAI stated this initiative aimed “to enable the preservation of the knowledge and expertise that has been accumulated by Israel over the past years.”
Described as a “smartphone in space” in a 2020 Jewish News Syndicate report, the four-ton satellite is part of IAI’s AMOS series. “This is a fully digital satellite that can upload applications. It can broadcast data from one antenna and receive from another,” Shlomi Sudri, general manager of IAI’s Space Division, told the publication.
This mission follows a troubled history between IAI and SpaceX. In September 2016, another IAI-built satellite, AMOS-6, was destroyed when its Falcon 9 rocket exploded on the launch pad during a pre-flight static fire test.
While unusual for a commercial flight, clandestine launches are not unprecedented for SpaceX, which frequently conducts missions for the National Reconnaissance Office and the U.S. Space Force under a veil of national security. A more recent commercial example occurred in November 2024 with the TD7 mission, whose payload, ‘Optus-X,’ was linked through regulatory filings to a subsidiary of SingTel Australia Investment Ltd.
