SpaceX rocket launch from California: What time is liftoff, what to know about sonic booms
The company's famous 230-foot Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to launch as early as Friday, May 9, from Vandenberg Space Force Base, according to a launch alert from the base. On board the Falcon 9 will be a payload of 26 internet-beaming Starlink satellites for deployment into what's called low-Earth orbit – an altitude that allows for things like satellites to circle Earth fairly quickly.
The possible impending launch comes nearly a week after SpaceX, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, called off a previous attempt to get the rocket off the ground to deploy the satellites.
Like most SpaceX launches, the liftoff will be livestreamed. But the rocket launch will also be widely visible for many spectators across California, neighboring Arizona and, in some cases, Las Vegas.
Here's what to know about the launch, as well as when and where to watch it:
The launch window opens at 5 p.m. PT (8 p.m. ET) Friday, May 9, and lasts until 7:21 p.m. PT, according to an alert from Vandenberg Space Force Base in Vandenberg, California. If SpaceX opts to scrub the launch, backup opportunities are available beginning at 5 p.m. PT Saturday, May 10.
The launch, using a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to deliver the Starlink satellites, will take place from Launch Complex 4E from Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County, California.
Following the delivery and deployment of the satellites, the Falcon 9 rocket's first stage booster will aim to land on a SpaceX drone ship, nicknamed "Of Course I Still Love You," in the Pacific Ocean. This allows for SpaceX personnel to recover the booster so it can be reused in future spaceflights.
Rocket launches: Here's the May launch schedule from Vandenberg, California
Residents of Santa Barbara County, San Luis Obispo County and Ventura County could hear sonic booms, according to Vandenberg's alert.
Sonic booms are brief, thunder-like noises that are often heard from the ground when a spacecraft or aircraft travels faster than the speed of sound.
SpaceX said it will provide a livestream of the launch on its website beginning about five minutes before liftoff, along with updates on social media site X.
If conditions are clear, rocket launches from Vandenberg Space Force Base in Vandenberg, California, can be viewed from several locations as far as Santa Barbara and Los Angeles.
Space Launch Schedule, a website dedicated to tracking upcoming rocket launches, provided a list of places in California to catch the launch in person:
13th Street and Arguello Boulevard, the public site with the closest views of SpaceX launches
Firefighter Road, an official viewing area on one of the publicly accessible roads closest to several launch complexes, including Complex 4
Floradale Avenue and West Ocean Avenue, officially designated as the 'viewing site for SLC-6' (space launch complex-6)
Harris Grade Road, which rises about 600 feet above the surrounding area, giving spectators a good elevation to see a launch from most of the base's complexes
Renwick Avenue and West Ocean Avenue, another intersection close to the base where spectators can park
Santa Lucia Canyon Road and Victory Road, provides a partial view of Complex 4
Surf Beach on Ocean Avenue, the only location where the public can view the ignition and liftoff of rockets from Complex 4
Space Exploration Technologies Corp., more widely known as SpaceX, is an astronautics company owned and co-founded by Elon Musk, the world's richest man.
The commercial spaceflight company is contracted with NASA and the Department of Defense to use many of its spacecraft to help launch government missions. SpaceX also conducts many of its own rocket launches – most using its two-stage Falcon 9 rocket – including for private crewed missions and to deliver communication satellites to orbit.
Established in 1941, the Vandenberg Space Force Base, previously Vandenberg Air Force Base, is a site for both military, civil and commercial space launches.
Agencies like NASA and companies like SpaceX routinely launch spacecraft from Vandenberg, a site where where missile testing also takes place. Just recently, for instance, Texas spaceflight company Firefly Aerospace attempted to launch prototype satellites into orbit for Lockheed Martin from the base.
Owned by SpaceX founder Elon Musk, Starlink is a constellation of more than 6,700 satellites that provide internet service to customers around the world.
SpaceX, a commercial spaceflight company, has spent more than six years delivering the satellites to orbit with a regular cadence of rocket launches from Florida and California.
As of late-April, though, billionaire Jeff Bezos' Amazon is seeking to compete with Starlink by launching a group of satellites of its own. On April 28, Amazon contracted with the United Launch Alliance to deliver the first 27 of more than 3,200 planned satellites into low-Earthorbit for its Project Kuiper.
The inaugural launch of what is often referred to online as the "Amazon rocket launch" took place from Cape Canaveral Space Force Base in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: California rocket launch: How to see SpaceX liftoff from Vandenberg
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
17 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Ukraine says Starlink's global outage hit its military communications
By Max Hunder KYIV (Reuters) -Starlink systems used by Ukrainian military units were down for two and a half hours overnight, a senior commander said, part of a global issue that disrupted the satellite internet provider. Ukraine's forces are heavily reliant on thousands of SpaceX's Starlink terminals for battlefield communications and some drone operations, as they have proved resistant to espionage and signal jamming throughout the three and a half years of fighting Russia's invasion. Starlink experienced one of its biggest international outages on Thursday when an internal software failure knocked tens of thousands of users offline. "Starlink is down across the entire front," Robert Brovdi, the commander of Ukraine's drone forces, wrote on Telegram at 10:41 p.m. (1941 GMT) on Thursday. He updated his post later to say that by about 1:05 a.m. on Friday the issue had been resolved. He said the incident had highlighted the risk of reliance on the systems, and called for communication and connectivity methods to be diversified. "Combat missions were performed without a (video) feed, battlefield reconnaissance was done with strike (drones)," Brovdi wrote. Oleksandr Dmitriev, the founder of OCHI, a Ukrainian system that centralises feeds from thousands of drone crews across the frontline, told Reuters the outage showed that relying on cloud services to command units and relay battlefield drone reconnaissance was a "huge risk". "If connection to the internet is lost ... the ability to conduct combat operations is practically gone," he said, calling for a move towards local communication systems that are not reliant on the internet. Although Starlink does not operate in Russia, Ukrainian officials have said that Moscow's troops are also widely using the systems on the frontlines in Ukraine.
Yahoo
25 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Tesla misses Wall Street expectations on revenue, earnings per share in second quarter earnings
Tesla's second quarter earnings signaled the company continues to go through a difficult patch, with both revenue and adjusted earnings per share missing the average Wall Street estimates. Revenue was $22.5 billion, down approximately 12% year over year, the sharpest decline in at least a decade. Adjusted earnings per share was 40 cents, down from 52 cents a year ago. Analysts, on average, had forecast revenue between $22.62 billion and $22.64 billion and adjusted EPS of $0.41 to $0.42 per share, with Tesla below the midpoint on each. Tesla's double-digit percentage revenue decline was primarily attributed to the ongoing slump in vehicle deliveries. Improved energy storage deployments and new service offerings provided minor offsets, but could not outweigh the hit from lagging car sales and persistent price competition across the electric vehicle industry. Operating income also fell significantly, coming in at $923 million, which was below consensus estimates of $1.23 billion. Net income dropped year over year as margins continued to shrink, pressured by lower average selling prices, higher raw material costs, and global trade headwinds. Tesla had previously reported deliveries of more than 384,000 vehicles in the quarter—a drop of more than 13% from the previous year—with production holding steady at just over 410,000 vehicles. This marks the second quarter in a row of reduced year-over-year deliveries. Wall Street had entered the earnings week with tepid expectations, citing declining sales, compressed margins, and elevated spending on research and development as factors dampening short-term prospects. While Tesla's results were slightly weaker than forecast, shares saw only a modest uptick in after-hours trading, as investors focused on the company's long-term ambitions rather than current sales struggles. Robotaxi, AI, and a new affordable model Tesla's leadership used the earnings release to reaffirm its pivot toward next-generation technologies. CEO Elon Musk highlighted the launch of Tesla's first Robotaxi pilot service in Austin, along with vague remarks related to the ongoing development of a long-rumored 'more affordable' Tesla model. Musk signaled that, amid stiffer automotive competition, Tesla's strategy increasingly centers on breakthroughs in autonomy, artificial intelligence, and energy solutions as pillars for future growth. Multiple challenges continue to weigh on Tesla, including expiring U.S. electric vehicle tax credits in October 2025, ongoing trade disputes and tariffs affecting costs and global supply, and intensifying competition from established automakers and Chinese EV brands. More generally, the brand has growing reputational issues associated with Musk and his support of President Donald Trump, even after the two had a falling out that coincided with fierce criticism of each upon the other. During Musk's brief role helping the administration, his sometimes successful attempts at slashing government spending provoked ire from much of Tesla's traditional customer base, with environmentalist and left-leaning politics. Other investors said they wished the distraction would go away. For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing. This story was originally featured on
Forbes
an hour ago
- Forbes
Starlink Down—What Caused The Outage And Is It Back Up Yet?
Reports that Starlink was down started flooding in on Down Detector at about 15:00 EST, numbering ... More about 55,000 reports. Elon Musk's Starlink went down on Thursday afternoon, causing chaos across the globe. Reports that Starlink was down started flooding in on Down Detector at about 15:00 EST, numbering about 55,000 reports. Of the reported issues with Starlink, 68% said there was a 'total blackout.' Starlink's official account posted on X, formerly Twitter, to acknowledge the outage and reassure users it was working on a solution. Elon Musk apologised for the outage of his Starlink network, on X. 'SpaceX will remedy the root cause to ensure it doesn't happen again,' he wrote. Satellite internet constellation Starlink provides network coverage for around 130 countries and territories, with the aim of offering global mobile broadband. Part of Elon Musk's SpaceX, the company is growing quickly, Over the past year, Starlink expanded to 42 new countries, territories and other markets around the world, according to a recent press release. Elon Musk apologised for the outage of his Starlink network, on X formerly Twitter. 'SpaceX will ... More remedy root cause to ensure it doesn't happen again,' he wrote. How Long Was Starlink Down And Is It Back Up Yet? The outage lasted around two hours. Now, Starlink seems to be mostly back up and running, but there are still reports of issues at the time of writing. 'Still down here in the Philippines north Cotabato,' one user wrote on Down Detector. 'East Texas still down,' another user added. However, users in Nesbit Mississippi and central California said they could now access Starlink services. 'Starlink has now mostly recovered from the network outage, which lasted approximately 2.5 hours,' Michael Nicolls, VP of Starlink engineering at SpaceX wrote on X. What Caused The Starlink Outage? Nicolls says the outage was due to 'failure of key internal software services that operate the core network.' 'We apologize for the temporary disruption in our service; we are deeply committed to providing a highly reliable network, and will fully root cause this issue and ensure it does not occur again, Nicolls wrote. I have contacted Starlink owner SpaceX for a comment and will update this article if the firm responds. It sounds like the outage was caused by a technical issue, what, specifically that was is difficult to say without more information. However, Starlink users aren't used to seeing outages of this size and the tens of thousands or more people who were affected will not be impressed by the service going down.
