Southern California sky is lit up by Valentine’s Day SpaceX launch

Southern Californians out on Saturday evening for Valentine’s Day took a break from staring longingly into one another’s eyes to stare upon one thing else: a SpaceX rocket blazing throughout the early night Southland sky.

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket on Saturday evening from Vandenberg Area Pressure Base in California. The rocket carried 24 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit, in accordance with the corporate.

Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite tv for pc web supplier, has launched about 11,000 Starlink broadband satellites into house since 2019, utilizing its workhorse Falcon 9.

At 7:03 p.m., SpaceX posted to X, the social media platform previously often called Twitter, that the 24 Starlink satellites had efficiently been deployed.

SpaceX stated on its launch web page that residents in Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura counties may expertise a number of sonic booms throughout the launch, a phenomenon that has lengthy upset residents and raised issues concerning the booms’ impact on close by endangered species.

SpaceX has three extra launches scheduled from Vandenberg this month, the following anticipated to happen Wednesday, in accordance with the corporate’s web site.

This was the fourth SpaceX Falcon 9 launch from Vandenberg this month.

The Falcon 9 is a reusable, two-stage rocket. After its stage separation course of Saturday evening, the rocket’s first stage will land on the “Of Course I Nonetheless Love You” drone ship, which will likely be stationed within the Pacific Ocean, in accordance with the corporate.

“Love is within the air,” one X person quipped, “and so is Falcon 9.”

Instances employees author Laurence Darmiento contributed to this report.