Northrop Grumman, which built the satellite, told Dow Jones through a spokesman: “We cannot comment on classified missions.”

A SpaceX spokesman told the news service: “We do not comment on missions of this nature, but as of right now reviews of the data indicate Falcon 9 performed nominally.”

The Zuma spacecraft was attached to one of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets and launched from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Massachusetts, said the fault may lie with Northrop Grumman Corp., which built the satellite and the adapter that connected it to the launcher. SpaceX also plans to launch another Falcon 9 (F9) for communications provider SES and the Luxembourg government from another launchpad (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral in three weeks.
The U.S. government's highly classified Zuma satellite is reportedly lost after being launched by SpaceX on a Falcon 9 Full Thrust rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Northrop Grumman, who built the satellite, and SpaceX have both refused to confirm the mission's failure due to its classified nature.