Lost in Space? The Phantom Zuma Satellite
On the night of January 7, 2018, a Northrop Grumman-built satellite launched onboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 Full Thrust from Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral.
And was never seen or heard from again.
Initially believed to belong to the National Reconnaissance Office, the classified USA-280 satellite, codenamed "Zuma", was manufactured by aerospace and defense company Northrop Grumman for the United States government. Other than that it was destined for low Earth orbit, virtually nothing else is known for certain about the spacecraft or its function. Northrop Grumman also supplied the payload adapter for this mission, which is used to fasten the satellite to the booster during launch and release it once in orbit.
Zuma was originally scheduled to launch from Launch Complex-39A at the Kennedy Space Center but was moved to LC-40 in late December 2017 to make room for the first Falcon Heavy launch vehicle. Its Falcon 9 lifted off on Sunday, January 7 at 2000 hours (or 8:00 pm) on SpaceX's first of 21 missions of 2018 [1]. A short time later, the vehicle's first stage touched down at Landing Zone 1 located at the former Launch Complex-13 at the Cape.
Due to the mission's classified nature, SpaceX ended its livestream of the launch prior to nose cone separation to prevent revealing the payload to the public. According to Smithsonian Magazine, there are two differing reports as to what happened next: Bloomberg reported that according to "a US official and two congressional aides," the launch failed and the satellite, still mated to the Falcon 9 second stage, fell into the ocean. The Wall Street Journal, on the other hand, reported that the satellite and the second stage failed to separate and burned up in the atmosphere. While there is agreement that the payload and second stage failed to separate, the fate of the satellite is up for debate.
SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell stated on Tuesday that the Falcon 9 "did everything correctly on Sunday night,"a while Northrop Grumman declined to comment, "citing inability to comment on classified missions" (Smithsonian Magazine). According to Wired, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) catalogued a new American satellite with its orbital parameters redacted shortly after Zuma launched, also stating that it's possible Zuma "made a single orbit before falling back into the atmosphere and burning up." The incident did not seem to faze SpaceX— the first Falcon Heavy launched a month later on February 6.
Seven years later, neither the US government nor Northrop Grumman has publicly stated the fate of Zuma. There has been no confirmation of its successful insertion into orbit nor of its reentry into the atmosphere. Dutch pilot Peter Horstink photographed a blue-green spiral while flying over Sudan's capital 2 hours and 15 minutes after launch. According to satellite tracker Marco Langbroek, this phenomena was most likely caused by normal excess fuel venting by a Falcon 9 upper stage, a sign that the launch and deployment of Zuma were successful.
It is possible that Zuma arrived, or at least is currently, dead in orbit. Did the upper stage of the Falcon 9 fail to perform nominally? Did the satellite fail to separate from its adapter once in space and fall back to Earth? Or did the government fabricate rumors of its failure to distract from its top-secret mission?. It may be many years before we know for sure what became of the clandestine Zuma satellite.
Author's note: Thanks for reading the first post of 2025 and be sure to like and share!
[1] SpaceX launched a grand total of 134 missions in 2024— a 538% increase from 2018 (not counting Starship).
Bibliography
Erwin, Sandra. "What Happened to Zuma?" SpaceNews, 2018. https://spacenews.com/sn-military-space-what-happened-to-zuma-budget-standoff-continues-big-week-for-orbital-atk/
Malik, Tariq. "Strange Sky Spiral May Come from Secretive SpaceX Zuma Launch." space.com, 2018. https://www.space.com/39338-spacex-zuma-rocket-sky-spiral-photos.html
McKinnon, Mika. "What Went Wrong with the Launch of the Secretive Zuma Satellite?" Smithsonian Magazine, 2018. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/what-went-wrong-launching-secretive-zuma-satellite-180967786/
Seemangal, Robin. "Is SpaceX's Covert Zuma Payload Missing in Action?" Wired, 2018. https://www.wired.com/story/is-spacexs-covert-zuma-payload-missing-in-action/ a
This post was written entirely without the use of AI (sorry HAL)
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