I’m in Santa Barbara CA for the weekend and tonight at 2213 hours (about ½ hour ago) there was a launch from Vandenberg SFB which is about 53 miles WNW from me. I did not see the launch but did see the booster return in the night sky.
So very cool to see live in the night sky!!!
Some on the live chat reported hearing sonic booms in Santa Barbara, but I did not notice any.
Cool. Been to Vandenberg a few times now to watch the launches. The ones just after sunset are especially cool–there is a huge “jellyfish” effect from the large second-stage plume being illuminated in the high-altitude sunlight. The last time I was down there, you could see the second stage, the returning booster, and the two fairing halves. The latter three parts were shooting out pulses of maneuvering thrusters. It’s actually four spacecraft in one!
Cool. I’ll have to make a trip to VSFB to watch a launch too.
Seeing the booster return in the dark night sky, I could see what I’ll call its shock wave ahead of its burning engine. It was really awesome to watch.
I happened to bring my star pointer with me. It’s a small and inexpensive laser pointer intended to point at stars. It came in handy for my wife last night, whose eyesight isn’t all that great (due to her T1D diabetic retinopathy). Using it, I could easily point out the descending booster for her when its burning engine wasn’t very bright and wasn’t easy for her to spot. The star pointer paints a powerful green pencil beam that makes it easy for someone to see the long beam and follow it up towards the sky.
It is very inexpensive, about $25 on Amazon ➜
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And it’s a fun little toy. But one must be very careful with it, though, so as to not point it at any manned vehicle (e.g., airplane). It makes it very easy to point out stars to others.
Some web pics for that star pointer:
Green laser pointers are great for astronomy. Mine can light a match. Do not point in remaining eye.
This footage isn’t great (YouTube removed their stabilization feature for some reason), but here’s a vid of the “jellyfish” and all four vehicles separated. The one producing the plume is the upper stage.
Taken from W Ocean Ave in Lompoc (about as close as the public can get to the pad).
That was SpaceX’s 100th orbital flight of calendar 2024 (98 F9, 2 FH). There’s an F9 scheduled tomorrow from the Cape for 99. They will almost certainly hit 100 F9 launches before the end of the month. The rest of the rocketry world has 94 - none of them reusable at this point. FYI, none of that counts the Starship flights since they were all sub-orbital.
Wow. It was quite noticeable for me. It’s rare for the booster to return to VSFB, so the times when the booster does come back, creating sonic booms over Santa Barbara, stand out.
I saw the jellyfish from Santa Barbara. It was great to watch!
I was at work Saturday night, but I was still able to step outside with binoculars for the launch. That is the first I’ve seen with landing of stage one on the base. It was very dramatic and awesome.