SpaceX late Thursday successfully launched a Falcon 9 carrying the U.S. Space Force’s reusable X-37B spaceplane, kicking off the vehicle’s eighth mission. Liftoff for the USSF-36/OTV-8 flight occurred at 11:50 p.m. Eastern from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, with weather 90 % favorable. Roughly eight and a half minutes later the first-stage booster, B1092-6, executed a return-to-launch-site landing at Landing Zone 2, punctuated by a sonic boom along Florida’s Space Coast. The Boeing-built X-37B, which has already logged more than 4,200 days in orbit across seven flights, is slated to conduct classified tests focused on high-bandwidth inter-satellite laser links and what officials describe as the highest-performing quantum inertial sensor yet flown. The technology aims to improve data throughput and provide precise navigation when GPS signals are degraded or unavailable. Mission duration and orbital parameters remain undisclosed. Thursday’s launch marked the third time SpaceX has carried an X-37B and was the company’s 101st Falcon 9 mission of 2025. It followed SpaceX’s 100th Falcon 9 flight of the year on Aug. 18, a Starlink deployment from California, after which monitoring firm Netblocks confirmed a Starlink service disruption that cut connectivity to roughly 40,000 U.S. users. The busy cadence underscores the company’s push toward a targeted 160 launches this year while supporting national-security customers.