SpaceX announces the launch of the Falcon 9 from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Thursday evening

VANDENBERG SPACE FORCE BASE, Calif. – SpaceX announced the launch of a Falcon 9 from Vandenberg Space Force Base for mission NROL-113 at 8:20 p.m. Sept. 5.

Backup start windows have been set for Friday, September 6, starting at 7:58 p.m. PT.

A live webcast of the launch will begin approximately five minutes before liftoff and you can watch it here.

The mission, led by the National Reconnaissance Office, is the third launch to expand the federal organization's reconnaissance satellite constellation.

After the separation of the first stage, the booster will return to Earth and land on the Of course I still love you Completed ship waiting in the Pacific Ocean, as shown in the image from SpaceX below.

The following image, courtesy of the National Reconnaissance Office, shows an exploded view of the Falcon 9 and payload scheduled for launch Thursday.

This will be the 20th flight of the first stage of this mission, which has previously launched the following missions: Sentinel-6, DART, Transport-7, Iridium OneWeb, SDA-0B and 14 Starlink missions.