Saturday, April 06, 2024

Photos of the Day: A 2nd Falcon 9 Lights Up the SoCal Sky This Week...

As seen from Summitridge Park in Diamond Bar, CA, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying 21 Starlink satellites heads toward low-Earth orbit from Vandenberg Space Force Base over 200 miles away...on April 6, 2024.
Richard T. Par

Only five days after a previous Falcon 9 rocket launched with 22 Starlink spacecraft to low-Earth orbit, a second Falcon 9 took to the skies a few hours ago at 7:25 PM, PDT...sending 21 additional Starlink satellites to space. The photos in this Blog entry were taken from Summitridge Park in Diamond Bar, California.

This is the third SpaceX launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County, California, in almost three weeks—and it's definitely likely that another Falcon 9 will grace the SoCal sky soon! I'm just hoping that as summer approaches, SpaceX will conduct a launch a bit later in the evening.

When the summer solstice arrives (on June 20), there will still be broad daylight around the 7:30 PM timeframe during which the three previous Falcon 9s took off from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg. As you can see in these images, the contrail from the rocket isn't as bright as in the earlier flights because the Sun set only 8 minutes before liftoff.

Might I suggest that SpaceX launches the next Starlink mission between 7:45 PM to 8:15 PM, Pacific Time? I'm usually out walking around my neighborhood during that time if I'm not working that day.

Happy Saturday evening!

As seen from Summitridge Park in Diamond Bar, CA, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying 21 Starlink satellites heads toward low-Earth orbit from Vandenberg Space Force Base over 200 miles away...on April 6, 2024.
Richard T. Par

As seen from Summitridge Park in Diamond Bar, CA, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying 21 Starlink satellites heads toward low-Earth orbit from Vandenberg Space Force Base over 200 miles away...on April 6, 2024.
Richard T. Par

As seen from Summitridge Park in Diamond Bar, CA, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying 21 Starlink satellites flies high above an airliner as the Falcon 9 heads toward low-Earth orbit from Vandenberg Space Force Base over 200 miles away...on April 6, 2024.
Richard T. Par

As seen from Summitridge Park in Diamond Bar, CA, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying 21 Starlink satellites flies high above an airliner as the Falcon 9 heads toward low-Earth orbit from Vandenberg Space Force Base over 200 miles away...on April 6, 2024.
Richard T. Par

The contrail created by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that carried 21 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit...as seen from Summitridge Park in Diamond Bar, CA, on April 6, 2024.
Richard T. Par

The contrail created by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that carried 21 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit...as seen from Summitridge Park in Diamond Bar, CA, on April 6, 2024.
Richard T. Par

The contrail created by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that carried 21 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit...as seen from inside my car at Summitridge Park in Diamond Bar, CA, on April 6, 2024.
Richard T. Par

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