WASHINGTON — A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Oct. 15 launched 21 satellites to low Earth orbit for the U.S. Space Force’s Space Development Agency. This was the second deployment of satellites for SDA’s mesh network known as the Transport Layer.

The mission lifted off at 7:06 p.m. Eastern from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California.

This was the second plane of satellites for Tranche 1 of the Transport Layer, part of a planned global network of data transport and sensor satellites known as the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA).

The Space Development Agency was established in 2019 to break the Pentagon’s reliance on large geostationary satellites by instead deploying networks of smaller spacecraft in low Earth orbit built using commercial components and rapid acquisition met

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