SpaceX rocket leaves fat trail in Phoenix sky
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket was spotted lighting up the sky over Phoenix, Arizona, on March 18. Footage taken by X user @mavseventeen76 shows the craft flying over Phoenix. “Whoa,” the recorder wrote.
Stargazers in western Arizona will be able to see SpaceX’s upcoming Falcon 9 rocket launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base in Southern California on Saturday evening.
The private spaceflight company plans for the liftoff, which was rescheduled from Thursday evening, to launch 22 Starlink internet satellites into orbit at 7:30 p.m. Saturday. Backup opportunities for liftoff will be available until 11:30 p.m., according to SpaceX.
The satellites will be deployed roughly 62 minutes after liftoff and launched into low-Earth orbit. If the launch must be rescheduled, additional opportunities will be available beginning at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday.
The first-stage booster that will be attached to the rocket in Saturday’s launch is set to land on the “Of Course I Still Love You” droneship in the Pacific Ocean after separating from the rocket. In Falcon 9 rockets, the first-stage booster is a reusable component meant to propel the rocket out of the atmosphere before detaching and landing on Earth.
Saturday’s launch would be the 15th mission for the first-stage booster attached to the rocket. In the past, that booster has been able to successfully separate from a rocket and land on a droneship in the Pacific Ocean.
With Saturday’s launch, SpaceX will have completed 24 Falcon 9 flights this year, as well as 20 missions devoted to constructing its Starlink megaconstellation — a network of satellites designed to supply internet to remote regions at low cost. The company hopes its constellation will one day encompass 42,000 satellites.
“We’re really talking about something which is, in the long term, like rebuilding the internet in space,” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said in a 2015 speech announcing the project.
Saturday’s launch comes after stargazers in the Phoenix and Tucson areas reported seeing a trail of light in the night sky on March 18, which was a glimpse of the Starlink mission that SpaceX held that evening. That mission launched 22 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit.
Following Space X’s most recent Starlink launch on Monday, there were 5,680 Starlink satellites in orbit, of which roughly 90% were operational, according to Harvard astronomer Jonathan McDowell, who follows the megaconstellation on his website.
Viewers can follow along with Saturday’s launch live on SpaceX’s X, formerly known as Twitter, account through a webcast, which will start roughly five minutes before liftoff.
Madeline Nguyen is a breaking news reporter for The Republic. Reach her at [email protected] or 480-619-0285. Follow her on X @madelineynguyen.
Daisy Hips is a science communicator who brings the wonders of the natural world to readers. Her articles explore breakthroughs in various scientific disciplines, from space exploration to environmental conservation. Daisy is also an advocate for science education and enjoys stargazing in her spare time.
