According to a Jan. 3 announcement, one of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launch vehicles carried a “cryptographically-equipped” Cryptosat satellite — called Crypto2 — into orbit on Jan. 3. The addition of Crypto2 to the firm’s satellite constellation was part of efforts to make space a “new battleground in the quest for bulletproof cryptography” by expanding its computational power.

“The launch of Crypto2 gives us more availability and more powerful spec to support the growing portfolio of use cases in our development pipeline,” said Cryptosat co-founder Yonatan Winetraub.

Winetraub said some of the use cases the firm was exploring with these satellites included data encrypted to a public key and retrieving a signed timestamp for applications like smart contracts. In addition, the satellite was capable of generating a cryptographic key-pair and releasing a private key after a given amount of time in an effort to prevent “premature decryption”.

SpaceX launched the module as part of its Transporter 6 mission, which lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 14:56 UTC on Jan. 3. In addition to the Cryptosat payload, the Falcon 9 rocket carried 114 satellites into orbit for various operators worldwide.