NROL-76

Since 2006, United Launch Alliance had held the exclusive franchise for launching payloads for the National Reconnaissance Office. On 1 May 2017, SpaceX entered that domain for the first time. Falcon 9 lifted NROL-76 from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center — the company's first dedicated intelligence mission, flown under Air Force certification for national security launches that SpaceX had obtained in 2015. The payload's orbit remained classified; SpaceX streamed the first-stage flight but withheld second-stage telemetry.

The booster returned to Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral after the mission — the first recovery from a national security launch. NROL-76 formally opened the NRO manifest to competition after more than a decade of single-provider access.